The Coaching Curse
by McBaconface
Summary: The Mad Mollusks turf war team has fallen on hard times lately, and the group is in danger of falling apart because of it. So two members of the team take it upon themselves to save it by using the safest and most unlikely-to-backfire method of summoning a wizard using an ancient human artifact. What could possibly go wrong?
1. The Fight

Chapter 1 "The Fight"

Dave shielded his eyes as he stepped out from the dark room at the base of the Inkopolis Tower to the bright light of the plaza. As his eyes adjusted to the change, familiar shapes and colors came into view. Inklings were scattered around the Inkopolis Plaza engaged in various activities. Some gathered around in groups, chattering excitedly to their friends, others sat against walls and railings alone, taking breaks between battles. He saw several Inklings weighed down with shopping bags going in and out of the assorted stores of the Booyah Base. Dave sighed and kicked an empty can of soda at his feet.

Today marked the fifth consecutive day he and his squad had gone without a single win in any ranked battle. At times, it felt like he was playing an entirely separate game from the rest of his team. Their performance in Rainmaker today was especially pitiful. Out of the ten losses they had today, the Mad Mollusks couldn't even touch the Rainmaker in six of them. Dave felt himself get shoved to the side by an Inkling shoulder.

"Out of the way, idiot." Came the harsh, smug voice of his most recent opponent.

 _Humboldt is a sore winner too, apparently_ Dave thought as he glared at the offending squid. Dave and his squad just got their most recent loss from Humboldt and his lackeys. They were notorious throughout the battling scene for playing dirty and doing anything to win. Dave swore he saw Humboldt smuggling in illegal splat bombs before the match started. Dave was snapped out of his thoughts when Humboldt spoke again.

"Five days without a win, huh?" He said in his usual nasally, arrogant voice. "Maybe you should just give up now, y'know, while you're ahead!" He laughed at his own 'joke' and high-fived one of his teammates.

 _Maybe the part of his name that sounds like 'humble' is supposed to be ironic_ Dave thought, but he didn't respond to Humboldt's barb.

"You and your sad little team, unlike us, are never going to even be able reach S rank," He continued, "You really should try for something that's more your speed. I think you could reach 'C+' if you keep trying for a few years!" The bright green Inkling laughed again and turned to walk away with his team.

 _Yep, definitely ironic._

Dave watched Humboldt leave for a moment and then turned to his own team. They all looked as bad as he felt. Tim's hands were stuffed in his pockets and he had angled his hat so that the brim shadowed his eyes. He looked like he wished he hadn't gotten out of bed this morning, and while that was normally how Tim appeared, his tired slouch made him appear even more uncomfortable and exhausted than usual. Samantha fared no better. Her bright orange tentacles dangled dejectedly as she hung her head. Her face bore a rarely seen expression of weary resignation.

Finally, he turned to the last member of his team. Alan looked as spent as all the others, but there was a spark of indignation in his eyes as he stared back at Dave. "So," he began, "are we just going to let them walk all over us like that?"

Internally, Dave groaned. He had been expecting this from Alan since the end of the last game but he hadn't been looking forward to it. "No, we're not going to let people walk all over us." Dave replied.

"Really?" Alan asked. "Then why didn't you say anything back to that ink-sack?"

Dave didn't respond.

"Why didn't you try to defend us from all those other punks that have treated us like a welcome mat for the past five days, huh?" Alan asked again and stepped closer to Dave, "Huh?"

Dave was silent.

"You're supposed to be the leader of this team, Dave!" Alan was inches from his teammate's face, "And you haven't spoken up for us once!" His voice had been getting louder and louder to the point where he was shouting. Other Inklings around the plaza had stopped their activities and turned to watch the scene unfolding in front of them.

"Not to mention that you haven't said a word to us about this losing streak!" He said as he gestured to Samantha and Tim. "A real leader would've spoken to-" Dave cut him off.

"That's enough, Alan!" He shouted. Alan took an involuntary step backwards, Dave rarely ever shouted. "I get it! You're angry about this God-damn losing streak. I'm angry too." Dave limply ran his hand through his blue tentacles. "It's just…" Dave grasped blindly in front of him, as if to pull the words he was at a loss for out of thin air, before dropping his arms to his sides and giving out a long sigh. "Never mind." He slumped over and turned to leave. He looked over his shoulder and said in a lifeless voice, "It's getting late, I'm going home." He paused. "Alan, you coming?"

Alan glanced at his two silent companions, "No, I think I'll stay here for a bit."

Dave gave a noncommittal hum. "See you there." He began his lonely walk home in silence.

Alan, Tim, and Samantha said nothing to each other for what felt like an eternity. The Inkling crowd slowly dispersed from the plaza while the trio stood in silence. The Sun was just above the edge of the Inkopolis horizon when Samantha cautiously broke the pregnant silence.

"So…now what?"

Several moments passed before Alan responded with a sigh, "I don't know." He brought his hands up to his head and started rubbing his temples. "I'm just worried about Dave." He said, "He hasn't been taking this losing streak well."

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

Alan gave her a tired smile and lightly punched her arm. "Shut up, Sammy." He lapsed into silence for another moment before he spoke again, "I really am worried, though. In all the years I've known him I have never seen him snap like that." He continued, "He's also been getting up later and later every day. Did you guys know that?"

Sammy shook her head, looking even more worried, and Tim appeared lost in thought. "Do you think there is anything we can do to cheer him up?" Sam asked. Alan shrugged and sat down on the steps leading up to the Tower. All three remained in the smothering silence for a long time. Alan absently looked out at the plaza square.

Night had fallen over the once bustling area. What few Inklings that had been present up till this point had gone home. The stores closed a few hours ago, leaving the square devoid of all activity. Even Judd had left his cushion to find somewhere else to sleep for the night. Alan was preparing to get up and leave when he heard Tim speak for the first time today.

"Guys, I have an idea."


	2. The Idea

Chapter 2 "The Idea"

"So why are we meeting in the middle of nowhere again?"

That was the question Alan had asked Tim several times over the phone, with very little success. Each time he asked Tim all he got was a vague answer of "You'll see." Alan's most recent repetition of this very question to Tim yielded a bit more information.

"We need a lot of space," Tim said, "and someplace quiet."

"And how will this help cheer Dave up?" Alan asked.

"You'll see" was all Tim said before he hung up the phone.

The nowhere that Tim had arbitrarily sent him to was an abandoned warehouse nestled in a massive complex of warehouses. It was about a half-hour's walk from the Walleye Warehouse battleground, actually. The outside of the warehouse was dilapidated from years of salty air and covered in countless faded tags from various turf wars. It's only notable feature was a large tag that had been above the front door. It depicted a black squid with two crossed bamboo sticks that made an 'X' in front of it.

' _X' marks the spot, I guess._ Alan thought. The warehouse's interior didn't fare much better than the exterior. There were no lights inside the building, so the only light came in shafts from the various holes and missing panels in the ceiling. The only thing present on the warehouse's floor, aside from old soda cans and snack wrappers, was a rusty folding table.

Alan looked around and didn't see any signs of anyone being here recently. He pulled out his phone and checked the time. 10:30 AM. He was fifteen minutes early, for once. He put his phone away and idly looked around the empty space, waiting for one of his friends to show up.

He waited.

…

And waited.

…

And…waited.

 _What's taking them so long?_ He thought. _I've_ _been waiting for, like, an hour._ He pulled out his phone again and checked the time. 10:35 AM. _Huh,_ he thought, _must be defective._ After what felt like an eternity, Tim finally arrived, camping hat askew, carrying an overstuffed backpack that looked like it was ready to burst. Tim noticed Alan waiting by the warehouse's door and waved at him. "You're here early," Tim said, "Good."

"Hey, Tim," Alan waved back, "What's in the bag?"

"Tools that will help us later." Tim answered as he waddled past Alan and headed toward the folding table in the middle of the room. "Where's Sam?"

"She said she was stopping for drinks. Want anything?"

"I'll have my usual," Tim replied. He was silent for a moment before he added, "And a coffee, too, I think."

Alan eyed him for a moment and remarked, "Someone's thirsty today" and then texted the order to Sam. "It's not for me," Tim said, "I just think we may need it if all goes well."

"Are we expecting someone?" Alan asked.

"Again, if all goes well we will be."

Tim had begun unloading the contents of his overloaded bag on the old folding table. What Alan saw, however, did not put him at ease. First, Tim unloaded a massive jar of salt. Next, he pulled out six or seven candles from the bag with a matchbox to go with it. He was rummaging around the bag for his next "tool" when Alan asked uncertainly, "Tim…what exactly are we doing?"

Tim remained silent while he unzipped a pocket on the side of the backpack. From it, he took out a single piece of paper that was about the size of an index card and then gently handed it to Alan. When Alan took it from him, Tim immediately went back to rifling through his bag. "Be careful, that thing's old."

The first thing he noticed about the card was that it was extremely old. It was almost see-through and felt soft in a way that was almost exclusive to musty old books. The side of the card he was looking at had faded writing on it that was a deep reddish-brown in color, and the language it was in was unfamiliar to him. There was an image behind the words that baffled him completely. It almost looked like it could be a squid, if that squid was upside-down, had only two, thick legs, and had one eye on the sides of its body.

He flipped over the card and was equally confused by the contents of this side too. There was a circle with a star drawn inside of it, with what could be candles along the circle's edges where it touched the star's points. Above the circle was a rectangle with a strange creature with four splayed legs drawn on top with two candles beside it. The crude drawing of what certainly looked like a knife above the weird animal did nothing to put Alan at ease.

"Tim," Alan began, "where did you get this?"

"The Museum." He answered.

"Did you steal it?"

"No, Dad let me take it." He continued to take objects from his bag.

"Okay…" Alan was getting nervous, Tim's dad was the curator of the Inkopolis Museum and he didn't usually let him take any artifacts. "What is this?"

"What we are doing today in order to cheer Dave up," Tim replied.

"Don't get smart with me, Tim," Alan retorted, "What is this, really? Because it seems pretty sketchy to me."

"Don't worry about it, Alan, it's fine," Tim assured, "It's just an ancient human ritual to summon a demon…or a wizard. I'm not entirely sure."

"What!"

"See, this is why I didn't want to tell you what we were doing."

By this point, Tim took out a single power egg and placed it on the table between two candles and a kitchen knife, completely emptying his bag. He had laid a large pile of coins a to the left of the table when Alan wasn't looking.

"Now," Tim began, "if you are done overreacting, we can begin."

"Overreacting!" Alan exclaimed, "I've just been told I'm going to help summon an ancient human demon-wizard-thing out of the blue! You're right, I'm totally overreacting!"

Tim looked at him with a single turquoise eyebrow quirked. "Are you quite through?" He asked, "Because this salt isn't going to pour itself into a circle."

"But-" Alan sighed before he could continue. "Fine, I'll help you."

"Wonderful."

* * *

It took about half an hour to set up all the reagents for the ritual, Alan had trouble getting the salt to be _just_ right. All the candles were lit, the power egg sacrifice was placed upon the folding table altar, and all the coins were in a pile nearby. "Okay, Alan," Tim began, "when I give the signal, stab the egg with the sacrificial knife."

"This is a kitchen knife."

Tim waved his hand dismissively, "Semantics."

The Inklings took their positions around the summoning ring. Alan stood behind the altar and grabbed the "sacrificial" knife. Tim stood in front of the circle and looked over the card one final time. He put it in his pocket and hung his hat on his back. He flicked his wrists to keep his sleeves out of the way. He nodded to Alan.

Alan nodded back and raised the knife above his head, held it there for a moment, and then brought it down with both hands into the Salmonoid egg on the "altar." Tim raised his arms above his head and bellowed with all the might he could,

" _INVOKUM MERASMUS!"_

The ancient human phrase of power was harsh in his throat and felt uncomfortable on his tongue. The words echoed throughout the empty space of the warehouse for what seemed an eternity. After the echoes faded away, the two Inklings were met with a deafening silence. Tim looked around like he was lost. Had he said the words wrong? Did he do incorrect hand motions? Was this human ritual just a hoax?

Alan stared at him from behind the table. "So," he began, "I guess this was just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, huh?"

Tim replied to him mutely, "Apparently."

Alan walked over to Tim and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, "Don't worry, I'm sure there's other thi-" Alan was knocked over by intense rumbling on the ground. Tim stumbled back from the summoning circle and looked up to see lime-green smoke erupting from the candles placed around the summoning circle. In all the chaos of the ancient magic, Tim was dimly aware of Sam, bearing a holder full of coffee cups, entering the warehouse out of the corner of his vision.

The sickeningly green smoke slowly parted to reveal the most terrifying sight Tim had ever seen in his life. A massive, black figure towered over him and let loose a cry that reverberated through his head and caused his brain to vibrate.

" _WHO DARES SUMMON MERASMUS THE MAGICIAN?"_

Tim heard cups of coffee spill on the ground.


	3. The Bargain

Chapter 3 "The Bargain"

"What did you do?" The orange one screamed.

The turquoise one tore his gaze from Merasmus he had just conjured and looked at the orange one in the doorway. There was a cardboard tray full of coffee cups that had been dropped carelessly at her- it looked like it was a her- feet. It looked like some had spilled onto her t-shirt and shoes. She started stomping over to where the turquoise one was standing without even sparing the ten-foot-tall wizard in the skull hat floating in the middle of the room a glance. Based on the death-glare she was giving him, she probably wanted an answer.

"We summoned a wizard," Turquoise answered.

She reached up and grabbed his collar and dragged him closer, so they were looking eye-to-eye. "Why the hell did you summon a wizard, Tim?" She shouted, "I thought you had a plan to cheer Dave up! Like a surprise party or a gift or something! Not summon a fu-"

"Excuse me, mortals," Merasmus interrupted, both of the weird children turned to the giant wizard floating in the salt circle, "did you have a reason for summoning Merasmus or did you just want to waste his time?" Turquoise was about to speak but Orange cut him off before he could say anything, "Sorry Miss- Merasmus, was it? - Tim and I have to discuss something outside, so if you'll excuse us for just a moment." She grabbed this Tim's pointy ear and dragged him outside.

Merasmus could hear high-pitched and frantic shouting leaking in from outside. He turned to the one with yellow hair that had fallen next to the summoning circle. "What's their problem?" Yellow hair- is it even hair? It looks a lot like tentacles- appeared to be too busy gawking at Merasmus to answer. Merasmus decided to use his summoner's lack of any form of brain activity to take stock of the room around him.

The instruments they used to summon Merasmus were very unimpressive. A folding table altar? A fish-egg sacrifice? Fish-scented candles? _Looks like a budget summoning_ , he thought, _Couldn't even get a nice scented candle for me_. He liked the look of the glint in that pile of coins, though. Merasmus crossed his arms and looked back at the yellow one on the ground. "What? Never seen a wizard before?" he asked. Tentacle-hair slowly shook his head, mouth still agape. Merasmus scoffed, "Kids these days…"

He heard the echo of footsteps approaching from outside. Orange and Tim had returned from their little spat, it seemed. Tim was following behind Orange, clearly cowed after his verbal thrashing. Merasmus waited until they were in front of the circle. "Are you two done?" he asked. Orange nodded and glared at the one called Tim behind her until he, too, nodded. "Finally," Merasmus said. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath.

" _Why do you summon Merasmus the Wizard?_ " He boomed.

"We need help cheering up our friend, Dave," said Orange Hair-Tentacles, "He's been really down lately and-"

"Ah," Merasmus cut her off, "Merasmus sees where this is going."

Orange Hair-Tentacles seemed surprised. "Really?" she stammered, "Y-you do?"

Merasmus sighed, "Yes. Merasmus does." He always hated when people summoned him for nonsense like this.

"Oh, well, that's great, so-"

"Just so you know, mortal," Merasmus interrupted again, "it costs double if he doesn't plan to use protection."

"Oh, of course-" she froze, "…protection?"

"Yes, mortal, protection," Merasmus said, "Merasmus did this boon far too much in prison without one for his liking." He examined her uncomprehending expression, "'Protection' as in condoms, mortal. I cannot count how many times I had to give my cellmates the old Merasmus treatment," He paused, "You have those here, don't you?"

"N-no, no, we have those…here," Orange said. She was flustered for some reason, and her face was beet red. _Perhaps "Red" would be a more apt name,_ he mused. "Why are you so embarrassed mortal?" Merasmus asked, genuinely confused, "Had it not occurred to you the favor you would be asking of Merasmus to mollify your friend?"

"Not- not that kind of favor!" She sputtered. Orange had turned away from the wizard and covered her blushing face with her hands. The yellow one had stopped gawking at Merasmus and started rolling on the ground laughing. The one called Tim appeared to wish he could be anywhere else. "Ah," Merasmus said, "Of course. Then what is your wish?"

"W-We need, uh, help with our battling skills," Orange-head said, "Our team hasn't been very together lately and we need-"

" _This Merasmus can help you with_!" he cried.

"Really?"

"Yes, 'really,'" He said, " _Return to this place at the same time upon the morrow, Merasmus will have your help_." He floated higher in the air, rose his staff, and spun, disappearing in a puff of green smoke. Before he completely vanished, he whispered, "I expect half of my fee upfront, by the way."

All three Inklings were silent until the smoke cleared from the warehouse. "So," Alan asked, "How are we going to tell Dave about this?"

* * *

Engineer leaned back into the ratty old chair his employers called a recliner and let out a sigh. Today had been a hard one. Not to say that his job was particularly easy, hell, hauling around a literal ton of death machines in the Badlands' heat was difficult at the best of times. But today had been more trying than usual because the BLU Spy and Demo sure seemed to have it out for him today. If it wasn't a sapper, it was a stickybomb, if it wasn't a stickybomb it was a knife in his back. He thanked God Pyro was in a charitable mood today. Engineer didn't know how many times that man had saved his bacon.

He looked around the company living room and saw his teammates engaged in various activities. Demo was sitting cross-legged on the ground, an empty bottle standing in the gap between his legs, drunkenly dissecting a grenade. Heavy had placed his gun on the coffee table while he sat on the threadbare couch, taking the weapon apart and cleaning every nook and cranny with practiced precision. Sniper entered the room with a coffee mug in one hand and a coffee pot in the other. There was a magazine tucked under his arm. "Evenin' Snipes."

Sniper gave a noncommittal grunt, "Truckie."

Engineer pointed to the magazine, "Whatcha got there?"

Sniper flipped to the front cover of the magazine and read the name aloud, "Badlands Game & Fishing."

"Really?" Engineer smiled, "I've been known to go fishing every now and then, myself."

"That so?" Sniper replied, without looking up from the magazine, "I could lend it to ya after I'm done if-"

" _Cower,_ _ **fools!**_ _Merasmus is here!"_ boomed a loud voice.

Engineer sat up quickly and looked around the room. He couldn't see the magician anywhere in the room. "Merasmus?" Engineer asked, "It Halloween already?"

"No," Heavy said, "Is June."

"I thought so," Engineer replied, "Then why in tarnation is Merasmus here?"

"Maybe bucket-head's late on rent." A disinterested Sniper offered as he turned the page in his magazine.

"Could be," the Texan agreed.

" _That is not it, mortals! Soldier is on time with rent, for once!_ "

Scout stuck his head in through the door to the base kitchen. He was wearing a chef's hat and was brandishing a frying pan above his head. "What's goin' on in there?" He asked.

"That Merasmus fella's here but we don't know where he is or what he wants," Engineer answered.

"Oh, well tell him to shut it. I can't make pancakes when his voice's shaking dust offa the rafters and into the batter," Scout ducked back into the kitchen.

" _ **Fools!**_ _I have been summoned and ordered to curse you with the greatest burden of all_ ," the wizard in a dress's disembodied voice shouted, " _ **Mentorship!**_ "

"Hold on a sec'," Demoman interrupted, "You can be summoned? How?"

" _With the power of dark, ancient magic, and_ _ **several thousand dollars!**_ "

Demo contemplated for a moment before taking a swig from his empty scrumpy bottle, "Aye, fair enough."

"'Old on a bloody second," Sniper said, "Whaddya mean 'mentorship'? I'm not about to start teaching no bleedin' ankle-biter!"

" _Too bad!_ " Merasmus boomed, " _You're all leaving_ _ **now!**_ "

Engineer felt like he was being lifted, then he was catapulted forward, and then he knew no more.


	4. The Meeting

Chapter 4

Tim scanned the empty warehouse for even the slightest change from the last time he checked a minute ago. Of course, nothing _had_ changed in the last sixty seconds, just like all the other times he checked. After the wizard/demon/thing-in-a-dress disappeared yesterday, Alan and Sam decided that he should be the one to wait around for the wizard to return, since it was his idea to summon him (her? The dress was really throwing Tim off) in the first place. He pulled out his phone and idly opened his chat with Sam.

 _Is it there yet?_ Sam asked. Tim glanced up from his phone to be absolutely sure nothing had happened. _No_ , He responded, _He's late._ He hated it when people were not on time. Punctuality was one of the few things Tim prided himself on. The phone vibrated in his hand and a gray bubble appeared, _K, we'll just keep walking The Big D in circles till your wizard shows up._

 _I wish you would call Dave something other than "The Big D,"_ He responded.

 _Is 'D-Man' better?_

 _No._ Tim sighed and looked around the empty room again, not really expecting anything different. _I need some fresh air,_ he thought. He meandered over to the door and stepped outside. The turquoise Inkling breathed in the salty air drifting in over from the ocean. To be honest, Tim wasn't even sure why he suggested summoning the wizard at all. He didn't expect anything to happen, he just thought it would be funny to mess with Alan and Sam for once.

He was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard the foreboding ring of a bell, followed by several loud thuds, from inside the warehouse. Tim grabbed his phone and ran back inside. He stopped in his tracks when he saw the scene in the middle of the room. The wizard was nowhere to be seen, but half of the gold pile from yesterday's summoning was gone, unfortunately. As annoying as it was to lose the coins, Tim was more focused on the tangle of bodies on the floor.

" _Here, mortal,_ " He heard the disembodied wizard say, " _Are your_ _ **coaches!**_ "

* * *

Sam's phone vibrated in her pocket. She took it out and read the new message from Tim, _They are here_ , was all it said. The Inkling took a sip from her Squidbucks cup and nodded at Alan, who currently had his arm wrapped around the shoulder of a very sullen Dave. He nodded back at Sam and made a turn in the direction of their little summoning warehouse from yesterday.

"Where are you guys taking me?" Dave asked.

"It's a surprise," Alan replied.

Dave grimaced, "You know I hate surprises, Alan."

"I know you hate surprises, but I think you're going to love this one."

"You sure?"

"I can promise you it won't be like your fourteenth birthday party," Sam chimed in.

"Okay…" Dave didn't seem convinced. Granted, it isn't often that a surprise located in a remote, abandoned industrial area classifies as a 'good' one. Speaking of which, they had been leading Dave through the maze of warehouses for over an hour, waiting for Tim's signal, and he looked more and more uneasy the deeper they went. Luckily, they were only about five minutes away from their destination.

"This 'surprise' isn't illegal, right?" Dave asked.

"She just said it won't be like your birthday party, Dave," Alan said.

"It better not be, I still get funny looks from police officers."

Sam smiled to herself and saw the large, black squid painted above the door of the building in front of them. "We're here!" She exclaimed, "Alright, I'm going in to make sure everything's ready. Dave, cover your eyes!"

"Is that really necessary?"

"Yes, now do it before I have Alan hold his hands over your eyes."

Dave shuddered, "Please don't. He never washes his hands."

"Hey!" Alan shouted, "I was my hands all the time, thank you very much!"

"You have to use soap, Alan. Just rinsing with water doesn't count."

"Well, excuse me-"

"Dave," Sam interrupted, clearly exasperated, "Just cover your eyes."

After she saw him grudgingly cover his eyes, Sam entered the building. Sam saw Tim standing as still as a statue inside, arms limp at his sides. She walked over, the sounds of her footsteps echoed loudly through the open space, and tapped his shoulder, "Tim?" His face was even paler than usual, and his mouth hung agape. Sam shook his shoulder, "What's wrong?"

He wordlessly lifted his arm to point at the center of the massive room. Sam followed his stricken gaze and her face scrunched in confusion. In front of her was a massive red tangle of limbs and bodies. She looked back at her terrified companion. _This is weird and all,_ She thought, _but I don't think it's_ that _scary._ Tim had managed to wrench his eyes from the pile and turned his attention to Sam. "Tim, what's the big deal?"

His mouth moved but no sound came out. Sam had never seen Tim speechless before, he was almost always calm and collected. He finally managed to whisper in a hoarse voice, "Humans…" Sam's eyes widened, and she examined the pile of bodies more closely. None of the beings in the tangled mess had tentacles on their head, and they all seemed much larger than the average inkling. Some of them had this strange material on the tops of their heads and on their faces that reminded her of Judd's fur. "Oh," Sam muttered.

Sam froze as she saw the human that was on the top of the heap stir. She tried to turn and run but her body resisted. It felt like her blood had been replaced with concrete. The human brought a massive hand to its head and sat up. It groggily scanned the area around it and mumbled quietly to itself. The human was giant, it had to be well above six feet tall. Its long arms looked to be as wide as tree trunks. The thing's hands were so large that it could cover Sam's face entirely. The giant's face was no less intimidating. A broad chin with tight lips and a heavyset brow gave it the appearance of a permanent scowl. The large hooked nose looked like it had been deformed over time, adding to the human's brutish countenance.

It wore a thick black vest over a bright red shirt. The giant hands were clothed in dark, fingerless gloves. Baggy, beige pants were tucked into boots that seemed to be designed for combat. A bandolier of large, metallic cylinders hung on its right shoulder and crossed over to its left side.

It noticed Sam and locked gazes with her. She desperately wanted to run, or hide, or cower in fear, do _something_ to get away from this ancient creature but she remained rooted to the spot. The human spoke. Its deep voice rumbled through the air, it sounded as though it dripped menace to the inkling in front of it. She couldn't understand what it said, of course, human languages hadn't been spoken in eons. Sam heard the door open behind her, followed by muted footsteps.

"Are… are those humans?" She heard Dave ask, " _What did you guys do_?"

"Summoned humans to help us function as a team," Tim muttered.

" _What?_ " He shouted. Sam turned to her team leader and tried to put on a convincing grin. She shook her hands back and forth and squeaked, "Surprise!" Dave was not amused. Sam saw Alan standing behind the blue Inkling and asked, "Why did you let him in?"

He shrugged, "He said he would kick me out of the apartment if I didn't get out of the way."

"I thought you guys said this wouldn't be illegal!" Dave interjected.

"Technically," Alan said, "There are no laws against summoning wizards and humans, right, Tim?"

The yellow Inkling's question seemed to snap Tim out of his slack-jawed reverie, "There are none, as far as I am aware," He confirmed.

"See?" Alan said, "Perfectly legal."

Dave pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, "So none of you see a problem with bringing back several creatures that should be extinct to teach us how to work as a team?" Alan and Tim shook their heads while Sam furrowed her brow in thought. The 'creatures' in question were causing a ruckus while they tried to untangle themselves, until one wearing a brown helmet burst out of the pile, and sent his comrades flying. "Did you already pay them?" Tim nodded. Dave sighed again, "I guess we have to do this then, but how are they even supposed to train us? We can't just let them walk around the city in broad daylight."

Alan put his hand to his chin for a moment, apparently in deep thought, before asking, "Isn't there a special spectator's booth reserved for the Squid Sisters in every arena?"

"No," Tim suddenly objected, "Absolutely not."

"You have a better idea, Tim?" Alan asked.

"Well, no," He stuttered, "But we cannot invade Callie and Marie's privacy like that!"

Sam put her hand on his shoulder. "Look, Tim," she said, "I know you love the Squid Sisters, but I don't think we have any other options." He looked away sullenly but didn't argue any further. "Isn't Walleye Warehouse near here?" Dave asked. His teammates nodded. "I remember seeing that arena on the rotation today," he continued, "We can set up these perversions of nature up in the booth there and head back to the Plaza to queue for a skirmish at the warehouse."

The rest of the Mad Mollusks agreed to the plan and then remembered that they were not alone when they realized that the humans had crowded around them. The one wearing the brown helmet over his eyes put his fists on his hips and leaned in close to the inklings. Its voice was gravelly, hoarse, and somehow understandable, "Alright, maggots, let's see what you've got."

* * *

Heavy woke up to a dull throbbing sensation in his head. The feeling was akin to the first time he used a teleporter, only ten times worse. He rubbed his head and sat up from the lumpy surface he was laying on. He groggily examined the area around him. There was nothing he could immediately recognize about where he was, he had seen many indistinct, industrial warehouses in his time working for Reliable Excavation Demolition. "This is not TeuFort," Heavy murmured. He looked down and saw that he was sitting on a pile of his coworkers. The Russian rose from the heap and saw two tiny people staring at him.

"Where is Heavy?" He asked. They did not respond, they looked more terrified than before, now. If there was one thing he hated, it was stupid children with no manners. That reminded Heavy of things he hated even more: being interrupted during his time with Sasha, and wizards. Which brought Heavy back to his current predicament.

Heavy did not know where he was. Heavy did not know why he was here. Heavy did not know what this strange child was. But Heavy did know one thing:

He was angry. Very, very angry.

The nerve of that wizard coward to take him away from his favorite pastime. And for what? "Mentorship"? Heavy did not teach people, he killed people. There is very little overlap between those two jobs. He examined the strange child that was standing closest to him.

Its head was too big for its scrawny body. That made it look underfed. The black mask that the child was wearing over its eyes reminded Heavy of the stupid "superheroes" in Scout's beloved comic books. Its hat was very odd. It was bright orange and two large strips of it hung down past the child's tiny waist. There were numerous spots of dark orange on the protrusions. A child with blue hat entered the room and started shouting, with a similar looking boy with a yellow hat close behind. Heavy couldn't understand what it was saying, he wasn't entirely certain what language it was speaking because it sounded like it was constantly gargling water. Heavy heard the pile stir behind him.

"Aw, Demo!" He heard Scout cry, "Get your frickin' feet out of my face!"

"Get yer bloody face off o' my feet."

"Get your filthy hands out of there, dummkopf!"

Soldier burst out of the heap and threw his fellow mercenaries flying in different directions. His helmet was teetering loosely on his head. "Merasmus!" He roared, "Get your spectral ass out here and tell me what you did!"

" _No!_ " The wizard's voice shouted back, " _You'll try to kill me!_ "

"I'll do worse than kill you if you don't get out here right now!"

"Wizard!" Heavy bellowed, "Where are we?"

" _Oh, right_ ," That seemed to get the magician's attention, " _I don't know where or when you are,_ _ **but**_ _that does not matter! These squid children summoned me and asked to become a killing machine, so I gathered the best killers I know to teach them the ways of_ _ **crazed murderers!**_ "

"We can't bloody teach anyone anything," Sniper interrupted, "We've got work tomorrow."

Merasmus groaned, " _Fine, I'll take you back tomorrow_."

"Wait," Scout said from the bottom of the pile, "'Squid children'? The hell's that supposed to mean?"

" _It means that they are a mix of squid and child, mortal,_ " the magician answered, " _I'm not entirely certain as to what that means, however._ "

"A mix of squid and person?" Medic asked, stroking his chin, "Fascinating. I vill have to get one for dissections."

The rest of the crazed killers in question had untangled themselves by this point. Most of them were in their company uniforms, with a few exceptions. Scout had on a tall, white chef's hat and wore an apron, with "Kiss the Muscly Cook" embroidered on it, over his usual clothes. Medic wore a blood-smeared sweater vest and had blood-soaked hands. Spy lit a cigarette and placed it in his mouth. "And what do we get for tutoring these squid children?"

" _Half of that gold pile over there,_ " Merasmus replied.

The mercenaries all turned to stack of golden coins. While an unusual form of payment, they glinted appealingly in the sunlight streaming in from the ceiling's many holes. The RED team collectively grinned. "That works," Engineer said. "Wizard," Heavy began, "How are we supposed to teach squid babies if we cannot understand them?"

Merasmus groaned again, " _Fine, mortals._ _ **Barpo kibalto.**_ _"_

Heavy's head tingled at the magic words. Idly, he realized he could understand squid children, who had been having a heated discussion this whole time that he had ignored, mostly because he didn't care. " _With that,_ _ **I leave!**_ "

The RED team all turned to the squid children and the walking fish went silent. They seemed to be intimidated by the throng of mostly insane killers.

"Alright, maggots, let's see what you've got."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Engineer stepped out from the dark confines of the warehouse and breathed in the salty sea air. It had been a long time since he had been so close to an ocean, his line of work didn't leave much time for travel that wasn't related to company business. He didn't much care for humidity, either. It's hard enough to walk around when the air's thick enough to cut with a knife, much less lug around toolboxes full of steel killing machines. Speaking of killing machines, the rest of the team filed out of the building behind their new students with only a few pushes and shoves. Engineer took a moment to examine these 'squid-kids' more closely and became baffled as to why they wanted mercenary training.

Their limbs didn't appear particularly strong, their arms were like twigs and he had seen chicken bones thicker than their legs. The orange one had an especially terrible stance; her knees were permanently bent inward like an Allen wrench. The squids' tiny hands (Engineer was still wondering why squids had hands) wouldn't be of much use for beatin' the living daylights out of someone. The kids' choices in clothing weren't well suited to combat either. The one with blue hair (tentacles?) had a matching blue sun visor on his head and wore a black shirt under a maroon T-shirt with an anchor emblazoned on it. The yella' fella wore sunglasses and a charcoal tee with a pink oval on it. The orange girl- it looked like it could be a girl- wore, like the others, an ivory-colored T-shirt with bright pink mountains over unfamiliar writing on it. The turquoise one, in contrast to his companions, was dressed more conservatively but no less informally. He wore a flannel shirt and a floppy turquoise bucket hat.

"Pardon me," He heard a familiar French voice ask, "But where are we, exactly?"

"The Walleye Industries shipping complex," The blue squid answered.

Spy sighed in annoyance, "I meant what city."

"Oh," The boy responded, clearly uneasy, "Inkopolis." He and the rest of his squid friends started walking away and motioned for the mercenaries to follow. The men slowly fell in line behind them. "And where is that?"

"Uh," He seemed unsure of how to respond, "Earth."

"I see," Spy said, "What year is it?"

"2015," The blue squid answered. That confused the mercs, at least all the ones who were listening. Soldier gasped dramatically, "2015? _My God_. Do you know what this means?" When no one responded, grabbed the collar of Scout's shirt and lifted him into the air like a ragdoll. "Young people are going to be seduced by squids in the eighties!" He shouted, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world. "Soldier, put me down!"

"No!" Soldier roared back, "I will not allow you to fall victim to these squids' seductive charms!" He shook Scout for emphasis and then pointed at the baffled kids, "If you want to end humanity, you're going to have to pry him from my cold dead hands!" Engineer was debating whether to interfere and help the dangling Scout. Soldier had these outbursts frequently, but he usually became distracted by something else and would calm down. Or get angrier. Depended on what he saw, really.

Engineer was in the middle of a mental coin flip when the boy in the bucket hat spoke up. "Humans went extinct ten-thousand years ago," He said, "So there's no way any of our ancestors could've done… that." Soldier paused for a moment, his mouth slightly hung open. "Oh," He said, "You sure?" Bucket-hat nodded. Soldier released his death-grip on Scout's shirt and the runner plummeted like a rock to the ground with an undignified yelp. _That solves the 'where' and 'when' for our location_ , Engineer thought, _But not the 'why' and the 'who.' May as well find out._

"I just realized we didn't have any proper introductions," Engineer said to the kids. "You all can call me Engineer, or just 'Engie' for short," He pointed to the other mercenaries as he recited their names, "That there is Soldier," He gave a salute, "The loud fella' on the ground's called Scout. The one in the gas mask is Pyro." Pyro tilted its head as it examined the kids more closely. "The tall one over there is Sniper. The fancy suit over there is Spy."

The Frenchman took a drag of his cigarette. "Charmed," he said, voice dripping with boredom. "The smashed fella's Demo. The big Hoss and the man next to him're Heavy and Medic." The Russian scowled and crossed his arms. Medic had been staring intently, his brow furrowed, at the children ever since they stepped outside. "Now," Engineer said, "With whom do we have the pleasure of making acquaintance?"

Three of them seemed at a loss for words until the yellow-haired one spoke up. "I'm Alan," He said. That snapped them back to reality. "I'm Dave," He said. Dave pointed to the kid with orange hair, "She's Sam." She gave a nervous wave. Bucket Hat nodded and said, "My name is Tim." Engineer put on his most disarming smile. "Well, it's a pleasure to meet y'all," He said, "If you don't mind me askin', why'd you get Merasmus to summon us?"

"Well," Alan began, "We've had a pretty bad losing streak in Ranked Battles for the past few weeks, and Tim here," He put his hand down on Tim's shoulder, "Thought that we could use some professional help."

"Wait," Demo slurred from somewhere behind Engineer, "How'd you get that crossdressin' mimsy to show up?"

Tim drew a yellowed scrap of paper from his pocket. "I followed the instructions on this ancient human artifact." Soldier stepped forward and snatched the paper from Tim's hand, "Hey!" He shouted, "Give that back, that is a priceless artifact!" Soldier ignored him and examined the paper. "Priceless?" Soldier barked out a short laugh, "'Worthless' is a better word, son. This is one of Merasmus's business cards. I use these as toilet paper," He laughed again, "The goat skin in the paper's pretty soft." He handed the card back to Tim, who didn't look like he wanted the card back anymore.

Dave coughed to get everyone's attention. "Anyway," He began, "We're taking you guys to Walleye Warehouse so you can see what to help us with." Dave scanned his surroundings. "We're here, actually." Engineer looked around, he couldn't tell what was so special about this warehouse in particular. It looked the same as every other one they'd passed. "Alan," Dave said, "Why don't you and Tim take them up to the spectator's booth." Alan nodded, while Tim looked less than pleased. "Right this way," Alan said. He motioned to a set of grated-metal stairs reminiscent of a fire escape. The RED team followed their guides up the stairs.

* * *

The spectator's booth was surprisingly luxurious for its location in an industrial shipping complex. There was hot pink plush carpeting on the floor. Four pink and neon-green chairs with oversized cushions were scattered around the room. All of them seemed to be made for people that were four feet tall, though. A minibar was situated in the rear corner of the room. Engineer couldn't even guess at what its contents could be. A large glass window took the place of a wall and gave a view into the warehouse floor below.

Sunlight streamed in from large gaps in the ceiling. Bright yellow crossbeams that ran to the roof were dotted about on the floor. Engineer saw cardboard boxes of various shapes and sizes being moved every which way by conveyor belts. Numerous shipping crates, all of which bore logos of companies Engineer had never heard of, combined with safety railings to create an arena of sorts. A stack of large boxes formed a large "U" shape in the center of the room.

"Welcome to the Squid Sister's special reserved spectator's booth!" Alan said while making a grand sweeping gesture. "Try not to break anything, we're kind of not allowed to be here." Heavy walked past the two kids and the rest of the mercenaries and plopped down on one of the green chairs. It groaned under his massive weight. Tim's eyes widened at the sound and his face went a shade or two paler than it already was. "He alright?" Engineer asked.

"Uh, sure," Alan responded, as he waved his hand in front of his friend's face. "Welp, we're going to go back to Inkopolis Square and you'll see us down there in the arena in about forty-five minutes."

"See you then," Engineer replied. Alan pushed the stunned Tim out the door and left, leaving the mercenaries alone. The men had all settled in around the room. A poignant silence hung in the air. "Know what?" Scout began, "I'm gonna say it. I don't like these squid people." Heavy grunted in agreement, "I do not trust them." Demo stopped rummaging around in the minibar and muttered a slurred similar sentiment. He pulled out a large bottle of some unknown liquor, pulled the cork out with his teeth and drank deeply. Spy placed another cigarette in his mouth.

"They don't exactly rub me the right way either, fellas," Engineer said, "But we can't get home 'till Merasmus comes back tomorrow, so we might as well go along with it 'till then." The mercenaries sat in silence. "Hey Demo," Scout began, "There any more of that stuff?"

* * *

Dave saw Alan and Tim emerge from the Squid Sisters' booth atop the warehouse. Alan looked like he always did, confident with only a bit of smugness, but Tim looked mortified. His eyes were as wide as dinner plates and his complexion was way paler than his usual cave-dweller skin tone. He also didn't seem to be able to close his hanging mouth. Dave exchanged stares with Sam. "So, Tim's not feeling good about this plan," He noted. Sam nodded in agreement.

Alan and the terrified Tim approached the pair. "Just for the record," Tim muttered, "This is a terrible plan."

"You already said that," Alan responded.

"That doesn't make it any less terrible," Tim shot back, "In fact, I think it makes it worse, because I have to keep reminding you all of how terrible of a plan it is."

Dave sighed, "We get Tim, you love the Squid Sisters, we know. But we don't have any better options on what to do with these things. Which are _your_ fault, by the way." Tim looked at the ground sullenly but didn't argue any further. "Any more objections?" Dave asked the rest of his team. When no one spoke up, Dave took that as a sign to move out. "Alright then," He said, "Let's get going to the Square. We don't have all day."

* * *

The Mad Molluscs arrived at the Inkopolis Square in silence. The Square looked much the same as it always did. Inklings were scattered about, chattering to each other in groups or mindlessly scrolling through their phones. Loud music was blaring from all the stores and the Tower itself. Judd was snoring away on his pillow, as usual. Although that weird old guy wasn't peeking up from the sewer grate like he always was. _That's odd,_ Dave thought, _but he creeps me out_.

The team walked to Ammo Knights. Weapons weren't allowed outside of turf war matches by law, so Inklings had to leave their weapons with designated officials. Sheldon was one of the few people in Inkopolis licensed to store ink weaponry. It wasn't surprising really, it wouldn't make sense for an arms dealer to not be able to store his wares. The glass door slid open and let loose a burst of cool air in Dave's face. He stepped inside, followed by his team. He blinked to adjust his eyes to the dimmer light. The crustacean wasn't standing by the counter "Hey Sheldon," He called out, "It's Dave."

"Coming!" A high-pitched voice replied. Dave heard metal clanging and heavy objects falling off of shelves to the floor. The diminutive Sheldon emerged from the sounds of chaos in the room behind his counter. "Well if it isn't my favorite team!" He exclaimed, "How are you?"

Dave leaned against the counter. "We're doing fine, Sheldon. How about you?"

"Fine?" He smiled, "Not many people would say they are just 'fine' with a five-week losing streak." Alan placed his hand over his chest in mock hurt, "I didn't think you would be the type to rub salt in the wound, Sheldon."

Sheldon gave a light chuckle. "Don't worry about it, we all have losing streaks. But since you asked-" Dave heard Alan groan- "I've been quite busy lately with developing new weapons and developing weapons for the big tournament Squidd Co. is holding next month."

That piqued Dave's interest. "Squidd Co.?" He asked, "Really?"

Sheldon nodded, "I was just as surprised as you." Squidd Co. was a top of the line weapons and hat manufacturing company with products that were notoriously hard to get. They appeared in black markets less often than a blue moon during a planet alignment and they were always bought by the highest bidder or confiscated by the government. Any Squidd Co. product was considered a collector's item, even if it had more holes in it than a sponge. Dave had never even seen one in person. The company itself wasn't any easier to reach. There was no known address that the company possessed, much less any phone number one could call. It was surprising that such an elusive corporation would hold a tournament out of the blue. "Know anything about this tournament Sheldon?" Dave asked.

"Admittedly," he sighed, "Not much. Though I do know that any are allowing the use of any weapon."

Sam blinked. "Any weapon? Even, like, military stuff?"

Sheldon nodded. "As far I understand it, yes." Sheldon clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "But enough about that, what can I do for you today?"

"We're here to pick up our weapons," Dave answered.

"Excellent, let me go get them for you." He turned around and disappeared into the cluttered mess behind the door. Dave heard more banging and crashes and saw Sheldon reemerge with his team's favorite weapons. He began to hand them out to their respective owners. "Alan, here's your inkbrush," Alan grabbed it and ran a hand through the bristles. "Tim, your splatterscope." Tim gingerly took the charger and peered through the scope, making small adjustments to it as he did so. "Sam, here is your heavy splatling," Sheldon gasped while trying to lift the weapon. Sam relieved Sheldon of the weight and experimentally held the charge button. The barrels spun and emitted a pleasing whir.

Sheldon turned to Dave. "Dave, your blaster." He took the weapon from Sheldon. The touch of the cool metal sent a brief chill up his arms. The inkling let out an involuntary sigh of relief. The weapon's familiar weight never failed to comfort him. He examined his blaster for any chipping paint or new dents. _Not a single scratch on her_ , He thought, _Well, not any new ones_. Despite the clanging clutter of Sheldon's back room, he was the best weapon keeper in all of Inkopolis. Dave turned towards the exit and called over his shoulder, "Thanks Sheldon! You're the best!"

"Anytime!"

The party made its way to the battle room at the base of the Tower. Music pounded at their ears as they entered the dark room. Dave walked to the computer terminal by the door and scrolled to "Squad Battle". Dave turned to his friends. "Everyone ready?" Tim nodded solemnly and Sam gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Alan smirked, "Should we put on a show?" Dave snorted in spite of himself, "Only if that helps us win." He turned back to the terminal and tapped the bright green icon.

 _Let's do this._


	6. Chapter 6

Bright light stung at Sam's large eyes. She squinted and tried to adjust to her sudden change in location. A patchwork industrial ceiling loomed above her, shafts of sunlight streamed from above and directly into her retinas. She shifted into her inkling form, relieving her poor squid eyes from the Sun's assault. Sam shook her head and sent magenta ink flying off her face. The inkling glanced at her teammates in front of her.

Tim was nervously fiddling with the sight on his splatterscope. Alan rolled his shoulders and tapped his feet on the ground. Dave stood still, focusing on breathing deeply. Sam swallowed anxiously and hefted her heavy splatling off of the ground. She thumbed trigger and stared up at the booth where they left the humans. Light reflected off the booth's window, obscuring the inside from her view. She was worried about leaving them there. There was a lot of expensive stuff in that room, the minibar alone was probably worth more than she was, and those humans didn't seem like the "gentle" type. An automated countdown snapped Sam out of her reverie.

She and the rest of her team began shifting their weight from heel to heel almost instantly. A knot tied itself in her stomach. She always got queasy with anticipation before a match, even in unranked turf wars like this one, and it felt especially bad today. Maybe it was because she was being judged by ancient warriors. She heard a loud "Go!" from the arena speakers. Sam pulled down on the trigger and the splatling whirred to life, ready to cover every inch of the arena with ink. The Mad Mollusks surged forward inking the ground as they went.

* * *

"Yo, is that them down there?"

Engineer looked up from his glass of squid-person liquor- which wasn't bad all told, even if it tasted like someone fermented a halibut into wine- and looked down at the arena. On the left there was a group of four squid-kids with bright green hair. On the right there were four more squidlings, all with a purplish-red hair color. Engineer couldn't tell which squid-kids were the kid-squids they were supposed to be watching. "Which ones?" He asked.

Scout put up a finger against the glass and pointed to the magenta ones. "They're wearin' the same clothes as the guys that left us here," Scout said. Engineer examined them more closely. They did have on the same clothes as the other ones, true, but the hair was still different. "Their hair ain't the same color," He remarked. Medic took a step closer to the window, glass of fish-wine in hand, and peered intently at the kids below. "Curious," He muttered.

Engineer heard a voice from the arena begin a countdown. All the kids down below leaned forward and quickly shifted their weight from heel to heel. Engineer couldn't quite make out all the weapons they were wielding. The one with the long hair- Sam, that was her name- held a weapon that closely resembled Heavy's minigun. There were several long barrels connected to a large purple tank. It looked like it weighed as much as she did. Tim held a bright green and yellow rifle with a long barrel and a scope. Engineer thought it looked like a sniper rifle had been made into a water gun. Heavy and Sniper had noticed the same thing and both of them started crowing the glass.

As soon as the automated countdown finished the combatants were off, firing their weapons at seemingly nothing. The squid-kids' -he really had to ask them what they were called at some point- guns were all firing globs of paint the same color as their hair. The kid in sunglasses ran ahead of the rest of his team, pushing what looked like a giant paintbrush, leaving a trail of magenta paint in his wake. "Quick little fella, ain't he?" Engineer commented. Scout leaned in and watched Alan closely, "Yeah, he ain't bad."

* * *

"Alan!" Sam heard Dave shout over the sound of splattering ink, "Why'd you bring the brush? This is turf war!" Alan had run ahead of the rest of the team but stopped in his tracks and turned back to Dave at the sound of his voice. "We're doing turf war?" He shouted back.

"Yes!"

"Why didn't you tell me?" He asked, "I would've brought the aerospray."

"I did tell you!"

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did!" Dave turned to Sam, "Didn't I?"

Sam ran back the previous few hours in her head, and she couldn't recall any moment where Dave told them that they were going to do a round of turf war. She shook her head. "Oh," Dave muttered, "I could've sworn that I told you guys."

Alan looked around awkwardly, "Are we gonna do this, or are we gonna stand here talking all day?"

The leader shook his head, "Yeah, sorry, let's go." Alan turned back around and pushed forward with his inkbrush, leaving behind a magenta ink trail. He made a beeline for the tower of boxes that dominated the middle of the arena. Sam could see splotches of bright green ink scattered around them. Clearly, the enemy team didn't stop do discuss their weapon choices in the middle of a turf war. She dimly heard Dave grumble something behind her.

The inkling angled her weapon upwards and released her hold on the trigger. Ink flew through the air and pelted the ground in a column. She slowly strafed to her right and coated the steel floor in front of her. She jumped onto the newly inked ground and dashed forward. Sam charged her gun to full again and slowly swung it back and forth, creating a checkerboard of ink around her. She could hear the other team getting closer to her, so she took cover near the boxes. Sam peeked out from her cover.

One of the enemy inklings was ambling towards her, aimlessly firing his weapon. It didn't look like he had seen her yet, _Good_. With supporting fire from Dave, they could take this guy down in no time. "Cover me," Sam said over her shoulder. Without waiting for a response, she took a deep breath and stepped out from cover and began charging her gun. The other inkling's head snapped to her as soon as he heard the splatling's charge. He raised his splattershot and fired. Two shots connected to her face and chest before Sam could even level her splatling gun. She stumbled backwards from the impact of the ink and her grip loosened. The weapon covered the ground beneath her. It felt like she was stuck in acid quicksand while having the same acid sand thrown at her face.

A third blob of ink connected with her head, forcing it to snap back at an unnatural angle. Burning pain lanced throughout her entire body, but her head felt like she stuck it in a fire. Sam's hands flew off the splatling as she fell backwards. Before her head could even hit the ground, she exploded into lime-green ink.

 _Why didn't Dave help?_

* * *

Heavy watched the child with the paint minigun's pitiful display and grunted. _This girl does not know how to use her weapon_ , he thought. She shuffled out of cover without her weapon ready. She could not even take a hit either. Three hits from a water gun and she was dead? Shameful. "You've got your work cut out for ya on that one, Heavy," Engineer commented. Heavy grunted noncommittally in response. _Much to work on indeed_.

* * *

Alan heard the familiar thud of ink battering a body with an accompanying loud yelp. _That was probably Sam_ , he thought. She almost always the first one splatted, which was concerning, considering he usually ran ahead of the whole team and used an inkbrush. He had gone right at the box tower when he saw three enemy Inklings shooting everything in sight. He was hiding behind a section of wall that was right in front of a ledge that led to the enemy spawn. It wasn't the safest position, but Alan didn't really have much of a choice. He peeked out of cover and saw that all the turf he'd covered as an escape route had been replaced with green ink. That same green ink was getting closer to him.

Alan readied his inkbrush and dashed out to his right from behind the wall. An Inkling with a long-range blaster spun to Alan and fired. Alan ducked his head down under the shot. The main blob sailed harmlessly over his head and popped somewhere behind him. Ink splashed down on his back and ensnared his feet causing him to inhale sharply. It didn't kill him outright, but it certainly did hurt. He looked back up at his opponent. She stepped back from him, barely out of reach from his brush. The Inkling girl was already leveling her blaster at the bogged-down Alan. He didn't have time to get closer to her, and he couldn't count on dodging her shot again, so he started to swing his brush wildly.

Most of the globs of ink missed, but one lucky shot got right in her eye. She stumbled backwards with a yelp as one of her arms left her weapon to try and wipe the burning muck off. Alan couldn't help but smirk as he slammed his brush down and ran up to the blinded inkling to finish her off. He stopped within a foot of his target and hoisted the brush in the air across from his shoulder. He swung the brush with all the strength he could muster and the magenta ink obscured her from view. Alan swung the brush back, and forth, and back again, flinging ink everywhere. But something was off, there wasn't any explosion of ink from the inkling girl being splatted.

Alan stopped madly swinging his brush around and stood still, confused. _Where was the explosion?_ He wondered, _She should've been splatted five seconds ago, unless…_ Alan heard the wet, goopy noise of an Inkling emerging from ink behind him. His eyes widened behind his shades as he realized his mistake. He spun around just in time to see a green ball of ink collide with his face.

BREAK

"Aww," Scout groaned, "That looked like it hurt." Engineer watched that entire skirmish between Alan and the other kid, and he had to agree. Alan's body had already dissolved, and his clothes fell sadly to the ground. "How did that one get behind him?" Scout asked no one in particular.

"Perhaps that is where the 'squid' part we've heard so much about comes in," Medic theorized, "You all can see the paint-based weaponry they are using down there, perhaps that is not paint, but ink." Medic placed a contemplative hand on his chin. "They seem to dissolve into ink when killed, so it would make sense for them to be able to move through it, ja?"

Scout didn't seem convinced, "That's a bit of a stretch there, doc."

Medic waved his hand dismissively. "Feh, perhaps," He said, "I will find out for certain when I get my hands on a specimen." The ex-doctor's voice took on the same unnerving quality it always had when the opportunity to cut something new open arose. It always gave Engineer the heebie-jeebies, but now he started to feel bad for the kids they were going to be coaching. _The doc's gonna pull every organ outta those poor kids and put in some new ones._

Engineer turned his attention back to the match down below. Sam had respawned by now and was trying to keep the area near her spawn the right color and Tim was engaged in a sniper's duel with a kid on the opposing team possessing a similar rifle. Most of Tim's shots went wide and the green kid's shots kept getting closer and closer to their target. Engineer glanced at Sniper. The Australian had been watching Tim intently the entire match. He hadn't spoken a word yet but the grimace on his face showed his thoughts on Tim's performance.

Engineer took another sip of his squid wine as he heard the door to the viewing booth open behind him. All the mercenaries simultaneously turned to the intruder, and Engineer couldn't help but be confused by what he saw. In the doorway stood what must have been an elderly squid-kid. The lower half of his face was covered in a bush of white tentacles like a beard, and his bulbous eyes covered almost the rest of his face. His clothes were even more unusual. A tattered peaked cap sat upon his head, with two white tentacles poking through its rear. Engineer thought he had seen the emblem of a squid on the hat somewhere before, but he couldn't place where. The elderly squid man also wore a patchwork poncho tied around his shoulders with four polished medals pinned to it. He clutched on to a bamboo cane under his shaking arm. It looked like the squid got his fashion tips from Soldier.

A considerably younger looking squid person stepped out from behind the elder. She looked very similar to the kids in the arena below. She seemed to be the same age as rest, as far as Engineer could tell. Her yellowy-green hair tentacles contrasted her orange eyes, which were currently glaring, albeit confusedly, at the RED Team. She wore a black hoodie with a visibility vest draped over it. In the crook of one arm was a tub of popcorn, and in her had was a plastic bag filled with small cardboard boxes. She sucked the straw from a soda cup in her other hand.

The older squid-man's bulging eyes darted from mercenary to mercenary. He was trembling violently. "How…" He rasped, his voice filled with awe and terror. Heavy rose from his seat and spoke to Medic quickly in Russian. Medic inspected the two squid-people in the doorway, before shaking his head and uttering an uninterested "nein." Heavy lumbered up to the door and placed a massive hand on the handle. "Go away," He rumbled, and then shut the door.

"What was that about?" Scout asked.

"Beats me," Engineer replied, "Maybe the old folks home is on a field trip." Some of his fellow mercenaries snickered. Demo tapped the glass and grunted, "One of 'em's goin' at it again."

* * *

This match was not going well. Sam and Alan both got splatted in the first thirty seconds, Cod knows where Tim was. Dave inked the ground around a pile of crates in front of him and swam into cover. What frustrated him the most was that Sam charged blindly ahead without him. Dave told her that he was going back to spawn to ink the ground everyone else forgot. He was certain that she had heard him, but she just ran ahead and got herself splatted anyway.

Dave peeked out from cover and didn't like what he saw. There was a sea of green ink covering the entire warehouse. There wasn't a speck of dry ground or magenta ink in sight. Two inklings rose from the ink, one wielding a splattershot, the other with a blaster like his. Dave ducked back into cover before they saw him. Their wet footsteps were getting louder, he had to act soon or get splatted. He crouched and swung out from cover, he shot where he expected the guy with the splattershot to be. A metallic ping signaled that he hit dead center. Dave turned to the girl with the blaster and fired. She ducked under the shot, but the explosion coated her back in ink. The Inkling girl stumbled forward, and Dave took aim and fired again. This time he didn't miss.

With those two dealt with, he coated the ground around him. Once the ground was the right color, he went to the middle of the arena, firing as he went. He shot at the large "U" of boxes and swam through the trail it formed. Dave emerged at the center of the blast radius and scanned the area. Two of the bad guys were still unaccounted for. A torrent of ink from shot out from Dave's right side and covered the ink leading back to his spawn. _That's not good_. A charger had cut off his only escape route and now he was a sitting duck. A duck on an island of purple in a sea of lime green.

Dave couldn't make a new route back to spawn since the unseen inkling with the charger would just cover it up again. He couldn't go left, right, or on top of the boxes either. This charger had him pinned. He looked back to spawn and saw Sam running towards him, unaware of the hidden charger. Dave violently shook his head and waved his hand back and forth. She stopped in her tracks, a confused look on her face. "Why?" She shouted. Dave propped the blaster against the boxes and mimed firing a charger then pointed to his right. "What?" Dave's head fell forward and his shoulders sagged in exasperation. "There's a charger over there!" He shouted back.

"Oh. Why didn't you just say that?"

"Well they didn't know that you were there, and I didn't want to let them know by shouting to you," he responded. "But that's doesn't matter now, I-"

"Look out!" She shouted. Dave spun around to see a roller towering above him. His eyes widened as the roller started to come down. The last thing he could remember thinking before the roller slammed against his head was, _Oh squit_.

* * *

The rest of the match was more or less the same, the Mad Mollusks were splatted again and again and again. They couldn't even organize themselves, much less push out five feet from spawn. When Judd called the match, the Bad Guys had covered something ridiculous like eighty percent of the arena. Dave emerged from the dark battle lobby, head held low, once again. The rest of his team didn't fare much better. Sam looked like she was on the verge of tears, Tim had zipped his jacket all the way and was trying to hide his head in it like a turtle, and Alan didn't even make any snarky comments. Dave wanted to say something to cheer them up, but he didn't think that he could make himself feel any better, much less anyone else.

Dave couldn't blame them, they just got trounced in turf war- _turf war!_ That was the easiest game in the entire sport of ink-battling and they got ground into the dirt. He couldn't even imagine what those humans were going to say about this, they'd probably say there's no hope for them and go back to wherever they came from. Maybe even laugh at them, Dave knew that he would if he had just watched that abysmal performance.

The team entered Sheldon's shop. Thankfully, he was busy with other customers. Some vaguely familiar old guy and a girl in a hoodie. The defeated team left their weapons on the return counter and left the store quietly. The long trip back to Walleye Warehouse was no better, the team walked back in crushing silence. As they approached the shipping building, Dave could the bright red clothes of one of the humans leaning on the metal scaffolding's railing. It didn't look like he'd seen them yet. Dave turned back to his team.

They didn't look any better than they had immediately after the match. Tim and Alan looked about the same, but Dave could see tear tracks glimmering on Sam's face. That tore him up inside, he only ever started this team to have fun with his friends. If this team was going to hurt them like this, he would disband it and never play again. He cleared his throat, "Look, guys, we can just turn back now and leave all ink-battling behind us if it's going to-" He was cut off by shouting from behind him.

"There they are!" The human- Dave thought that one was called Scout- pointed to them and waved. Scout knocked on the door to the spectator's booth and then started jogging down the stairs. After a moment the door swung open and the humans slowly filed out, pushing and shoving. The inklings watched tiredly as the humans assembled in front of them. One of the bigger ones in the brown helmet stepped forward. "I'm not going to sugarcoat it, maggots," he said gruffly, "You're awful. Terrible. Just plain bad."

Dave felt his eyes fall to the floor. He had expected this. They were going to reject them and laugh at them. Just tell them to give up. Frankly, Dave felt like doing it. At least he could disband the team now, they wouldn't have to deal with all the carp anymore. The human continued, "Let's get to work."


	7. Chapter 7

"What?" Dave's eyes darted up to the helmeted human.

The human scowled, "Did I stutter, maggot?"

"But we're awful," Dave sputtered, "You just said so!"

"And I meant every word of it," he replied gruffly, "But we've got a job to do, and by God, we're gonna do it." The human leaned in close to Dave's face, "Whether you like it or not." Dave was taken aback, this went against everything was expecting. He could feel a small smile creeping across his face. "Now," the human began, "You all will be _my_ recruits. You will eat, sleep, and shi-"

"Hang on a sec," the scrawny human interrupted, "What makes you think that you get all of 'em?"

"Because _I_ am the only one that has served in the army!" The helmeted human replied indignantly. "I'd say I know a thing or two more about breaking in recruits than you do, son!"

"'Breakin' in recruits' my ass! All you do is yell at your heads all day!" Dave was confused. ' _Heads'? What do they mean 'heads'?_ "My heads are model soldiers!"

"Yeah, they're real good at rottin' in trenches." That got the helmeted human mad. He grabbed the scrawnier human's shirt and lifted him into the air. "Are you disrespecting the brave heroes that died for freedom, maggot?" He shouted, "Because if you are I am going to shove my boot so far up your-"

"Soldier," the biggest human rumbled, arms folded, "You do not get all of them."

"But-" The big one cut him off with a glare that could melt steel. Soldier grumbled and deflated, "Okay, fine. But I get one of them!"

"This is fine." Soldier smiled at that. Dave felt much less enthusiastic about their training now, they were talking about he and his friends like they were property. Soldier stepped in front of Dave and leaned in again. One of Soldier's massive hands rubbed his chin. He stood there without saying anything for what felt like an hour. Dave was about to speak when Soldier's hands shot out and raised the Inkling's arm. Dave jerked backwards from the sudden movement while Soldier rolled the Inkling's sleeve up. The human inspected his arm and let go suddenly. The hands moved to Dave's lips and wrenched his mouth open. Soldier stuck his head right in front of the Inkling's gaping mouth and examined the cavern closely.

Almost as suddenly as he opened the Inkling's mouth, he released his grip and stood up, nodding. "This one is mine." Dave didn't like the sound of that. Soldier turned on his heels and marched back to the throng of humans. When he realized Dave wasn't following, he shouted, "Get over here, maggot!" Dave jumped and scurried over to the loud human's side, since he belonged to him now, apparently.

"My turn! My turn!" Scout cried. When no one rebuked him, Scout took it as a sign that he got to pick his very own Inkling. The twig-of-a-human sauntered to the rest of the Inklings and rested a contemplative hand on his chin. His eyes flitted from Alan, to Tim, to Sam, and back to Alan again. After a minute of intense deliberation and chin-rubbing, Scout pointed to Alan and said, "You. Run around in circles for me." Alan's eyes widened, and he pointed to himself. "What are you stupid?" Scout asked, "Yeah, you, dumbass." The Inkling didn't move, and Scout rolled his head back and groaned. He leaned forward and shouted, "Let's go! Let's go!" while clapping his hands. Alan finally took the hint and started anxiously running around the assembled group. Scout watched him run around for about fifteen laps around the group and then he finally said, "Alright."

Alan doubled over and rested his hands on his knees. His breaths were labored, and Dave swore he could see Alan's tongue lolling out of his mouth. Scout swaggered up to the panting Inkling and planted a hand on his back. "Alright, pal," He said, "Stick with me, we're gonna go far." When Alan didn't respond, Scout's brow furrowed, and he leaned over the Inkling's shoulder. "You okay?" Alan didn't look up from the ground or otherwise respond. "Yeah, you're ok." Scout patted Alan's back and turned back to everyone, "He's okay!" Dave didn't feel particularly convinced. The humans apparently decided that was a go-ahead to continue picking their own squid-kids.

A tall human muscled his way to the front of the group. He wore a large brown hat, with the brim bent up on one side, that casted a shadow over his face. His eyes were covered by large, orange sunglasses. This human wasted no time in picking his student. He gestured at Tim and rasped, "You're with me, mate." Tim mutely walked to his new mentor's side. That left Sam, all alone. She looked terrified, none of the relatively friendly-looking humans were left to take her. The one in the white coat- Medic, that was his name- stared at Sam the way a biologist might stare at a newly discovered species on the dissecting table, while Engineer stared blankly at her, clearly uninterested. The massive one stood with his arms crossed, appraising her. An eternity passed before the biggest human grunted and nodded at her.

Sam stepped tentatively towards the mountain of a human. The rest of the humans started to drift apart from each other. The hefty human narrowed his eyes and looked at her more closely. "Where is your weapon?" He rumbled. The rest of the humans stopped and examined their new charges. "We, um, left them behind?" Sam nervously responded. The mercenaries looked at the Inklings like they had all grown a second head. "Why?" Scout asked.

"Because we're not allowed to take them outside of battles?" Dave offered uncertainly. That second head apparently started breathing fire and shouting insults in Octarian because all the humans reacted with a combination of shock and outrage. "What the bloody hell!"

"What in Sam Hill?"

"What kind of communist hell is this?" Soldier angrily shouted. Dave didn't understand why they were so angry (or what a 'communist hell' was). Those weapons were dangerous, and while Inklings were laid-back in general, it was still a bad idea to let a bunch of teenagers carry weapons in the streets. "Go get your guns now, maggots! _That is an order_!" Dave threw his hands up defensively, "Okay, we're going!"

"Get food too! I'm starving," Scout added. The rest of the humans grumbled in agreement. "Fine," Dave said, getting annoyed "Anything else?" Medic stepped forward, "I will be joining you." _That_ took Dave aback. "Why?" He asked.

"Because, uh," Medic floundered, "Because you need a… a chaperone! Ja! A chaperone! I can't let several children wander the city streets unattended in good conscience." There was an edge to his voice that made Dave feel uncomfortable, but he couldn't quite understand why.

"No, we're fine," Dave replied uneasily, "We've lived here our whole lives. It's not dangerous at all."

Medic was having none of it, "Nonsense. I am coming with you for your safety."

Dave looked to the rest of his team to back him up, but Alan just shrugged. Tim and Sam weren't any help either. Dave grimaced and turned back to the unnerving human, only to freeze when he saw Medic standing five inches away. The Inkling couldn't wipe the surprise off his face. The human had been standing a good ten feet from Dave just a moment ago, and he got this close without making a single sound. Medic tilted his head down at Dave and asked, "Shall we?"

Dave felt himself inch away slowly. "Uh… sure."

Medic gave a smile that lacked any warmth. "Wunderbar."

* * *

Medic made Dave feel uneasy. It wasn't his dry, high-pitched voice or his intense eyes that unsettled him, well those actually were pretty unsettling, but his odd behavior. He constantly scanned the area around them, focusing intently on every little piece of graffiti or dented trashcan. Each alleyway they entered was meticulously examined. Dave couldn't tell if he was searching for some unseen enemy or planning an escape route for every nook and cranny.

Dave tapped Alan on the shoulder. "Is he creeping you out too?" Dave whispered.

"Who?" Alan asked loudly. Dave suppressed a sigh and jerked his head at Medic. "Oh, yeah, him," Alan responded. "No, should he be?"

"Have you been watching him at all?"

"No." Alan looked at the human for seemingly the first time, Dave followed his gaze. Medic picked up a brick and weighed it experimentally in his hand. He hummed approvingly, put the brick down and replaced his hand behind his back. "I see what you mean." Dave shushed Alan as Medic approached them. "Are we nearly there?" He asked.

"Yeah," Dave answered, "It's just around the corner."

"Wunderbar."

The group walked the rest of the way in silence until they came to the mouth of the alleyway between the Battle Dojo and the Inkopolis News Studio. Dave turned to the unnerving human. "You should probably wait here," he said, "Humans are kind of supposed to be extinct, so…" The Inkling trailed off, the implications of Medic being seen were obvious. Medic nodded. "I will wait here for you," he said. "Hurry up, now," he said while shooing them off. The Inklings left him in the shadows and stopped in the middle of the plaza.

"Alright," Dave began, "Tim, Sam, you two are getting the food." Sam slouched over and pouted. Dave rolled his eyes. "I'll pay you back." She immediately perked up and beamed at Dave. "Thanks!" She said. "What should we get them?"

Dave shrugged. "I don't know, McPrawnald's or something."

"Alan," Dave said, "You're coming with me to get our weapons."

"Ugh," he groaned, "Why do I have to get the weapons?"

"Because I can't trust you with the food, you always eat it all," Dave answered. "Plus, I need you to help me sneak off with all the weapons. You do that all the time, don't you?"

"Shhh! Not so loud!" He hurriedly replied, and then said much louder, "What? Me? Use my weapons outside of turf war? Never!"

"Sorry." The Mad Mollusks agreed to meet back in the alley in ten minutes. Dave and Alan walked to Ammo Knights. Alan checked his phone before entering. "We have five minutes until the next maps in the rotation are announced," he said. "We'll need to have our stuff and be out of here before that broadcast is over."

"Why? Dave asked.

"Because everyone will be busy watching the Squid Sisters," he answered. "You could stab someone in broad daylight during those news segments and no one would notice." He saw Dave's expression and hastily added, "Not that I've ever done that." He wasn't entirely convinced. Alan entered the store, Dave followed behind him. "Hey, Sheldon!" Alan shouted. "How's my favorite crustacean?" Sheldon popped his head out from behind the counter. "Hello, Alan," Sheldon replied. "Any luck today?"

"No, but I have a good feeling about the team."

"A positive attitude is half the battle," Sheldon agreed.

"Yeah," Alan agreed. "So, could we get our weapons?"

"Of course." Sheldon went into the back room for a minute or two and came back out with Dave's blaster and Alan's inkbrush and placed them on the counter. "Hey, Sheldon," Alan began, "Could you get Tim and Sam's weapons too?"

"You know I can't do that without them here, Alan," Sheldon said. "That would be a violation of the _Sporting and Recreational Arms Dealer Safety and Regulation Act_ of 1995, specifically section five, which provides-"

"We get it Sheldon, but they're just getting some food, we're going to meet them in the plaza and play some turf war," Alan argued.

"Well then, I'm sure you can wait a few minutes for them," the crab said with that infuriating buck-toothed grin.

Dave checked his phone, they didn't have time for this. "Come on, Sheldon," Alan pleaded. "It's important!" Alan leaned over the counter and clasped his hands together, "Please?" Sheldon looked closely at Alan's pouting face and sighed. "Fine." Alan jumped up and threw his fists in the air. "Yes!" Sheldon went back into the backroom and came back with Tim's charger and Sam's splatling. The inklings scooped the weapons and left the store. Alan shouted, "Thanks, Sheldon, you're the best!" over his shoulder as they left.

Dave blinked as he adjusted to the bright sunlight. Inklings were still milling about the plaza, chatting amongst themselves. Panic gripped Dave. "Did we miss the news?"

"Uh, maybe?" Alan tried to take his phone from his pocket while struggling to keep the heavy splatling and his inkbrush in his arms. "I'm not too sure." Dave swore mentally. _How are we supposed to get these out now?_ he asked himself. He was about to ask Alan if he had any more ideas before he was interrupted by a familiar jingle blaring across the plaza. The inkling looked up at the giant TV screen attached to Inkopolis Tower. The Squid Sisters' logo was overlaid on a background of green and pink. Callie and Marie welcomed everyone to the Inkopolis News.

 _The Squid Sisters are so pretty and cool,_ Dave thought. _And such amazing singers too. Cod, they're so great._ Dave's head felt fuzzy and light, like he could just stand there watching the famous pair forever. Something shoved him from behind. Dave's mind snapped away from the broadcast and he turned to Alan. "C'mon," he said. "We've got to go." Dave shook his head, everything was muddled. "Just look at the ground and try not to listen," he offered. "It helps." Dave took his advice and followed Alan as he muscled through the crowd to the alley where they left Medic. _That was… weird_ , Dave thought. He never remembered the news having such a hypnotic effect before.

Medic eyed the pair. "You're back," he said. "With no authorities alerted, ja?"

Alan shook his head. "I didn't see any."

Medic nodded approvingly. "Gut." The human looked back at the plaza. "Why is there a cat?"

Dave was confused. "What's a cat?" Medic pointed at Judd, who was currently dozing in the warm sunlight. "Oh, Judd? What about him?"

"You said that humanity went extinct twelve-thousand years ago, how is there a housecat?"

Dave had never thought about how Judd still existed before. His brow furrowed in thought. He looked at Alan like he might have the answer to this new question, but his face was blank, and he shrugged. Medic waved his hand dismissively. "No matter." The trio quietly waited for the remaining two inklings to return until Medic broke the silence again. "How often do the police here conduct missing person investigations?" he asked.

That was certainly out of the blue. "Uh… not very frequently. They'd have to be either gone for a long time or someone really important. Why?" Dave asked.

Medic paused. "Well, we wouldn't want people to worry in case we are unable to return to this city after Merasmus sends us home," he said. He gave another unconvincing smile. _Wait_ , Dave thought. _'Unable to return'?_ He was about to ask Medic what that meant when a shouting girl cut him off.

"We're back!" Sam yelled. She and Tim held several paper bags branded with the red and gold McPrawnald's 'P'. "I wasn't sure about what humans eat, so I bought a bit of everything." She glanced at Medic, "I hope that's alright."

"It makes no difference to me, tintenfischkind."

Dave saw her shoulders sag almost imperceptibly in relief. "Oh, Dave, you owe me 30,000 G." She hadn't stuck to a bit of everything on the 100 G menu, apparently, much to Dave's chagrin. He scowled as handed the sum to Sam, who responded brightly with a "Thanks!" No time to dwell on the new lightness of his wallet, though, it would be dark out soon. As safe as Inkopolis was, Dave had no desire to wander around the streets at night. He readjusted his grip on the weapons in his arms. "We should probably get going," he said to the group. When no one raised any objections, he led the long way back.

* * *

When the Inklings and their "chaperone" arrived, all the humans were huddled in a circle facing inward in front of the warehouse. It wasn't chilly out, so Dave couldn't understand why they were huddling like that. _Maybe humans get cold easier than Inklings do?_ Dave wondered. But Medic didn't look affected by the temperature at all, so that probably meant they weren't cold. A cheer mixed with groans erupted from the circle. That just confused Dave more. _So, they definitely aren't cold_. He turned to ask Medic what his fellow mammals were doing, only to see that he had disappeared.

"Guys," Dave began, "where did Medic go?"

Alan gave him a funny look. "He's right here-" he said, turning to the now empty space where the man stood just seconds before. "Wait, where'd he go?" Sam and Tim shrugged. Another round of cheers and groans burst from the remaining humans. The Inklings moved closer to them. A forest of long legs blocked Dave from seeing inside. He put down the weapons he was carrying and muscled his way in between Demo and Sniper's legs. He saw Scout kneeling, shaking a closed fist. Dave heard a faint clacking noise. "Yo, shut up for a second," Scout said. "Bets?"

The humans shouted either "Win" or "Don't Win". Scout tossed his hand out and released his grip. Two dice rolled out and clattered along the ground. All sound abruptly stopped. The dice stopped with one dot on the first and three on the second facing up. "Little Joe," Scout said. He picked up the dice again and started shaking his fist. "Ballerina!" Engineer shouted.

"Natural!" Demo shouted back, seemingly challenging the human in the hardhat. Scout cast the dice again and the humans quieted instantly. It was unnerving how silent it got in an instant. The dice ceased rolling and both came up with the same side, two dots. Scout jumped up and thrusted his hands in the air with a cheer. Engineer laughed and patted the lanky human on the back. Several humans grumbled and sullenly handed wads of green paper to the cheering men. Dave had no idea _what_ was going on.

After Scout pocketed the paper he noticed Dave standing there, hopelessly lost. "Oh, hey!" He said. "They're back!" The group's eyes snapped to the Inklings. By the looks of it, some of them forgot they were waiting on the Inklings at all. "Did ye bring food?" Demo asked. Dave nodded and pointed to Sam and Tim. The humans' attention shifted instantly to the pair. They looked like a pack of hungry wolfish. Tim put his bags on the ground and slowly backed away while Sam nervously held out her arms and closed her eyes as the mob approached her. The bags were in her shaking hands one moment and gone the next. She slowly opened her eyes and saw the humans already rummaging through the paper bags. "Thanks, lassie," Demo muttered. Sam nodded mutely.

Dave went to Sam and gently touched her shoulder. "You okay?"

She nodded again and spoke quietly, "Yeah, that was just a bit," she swallowed, "scary."

"I am fine, too, in case you were wondering," Tim offered.

"I know you were fine because you ran a mile away, Tim," Dave said.

Tim couldn't form a reply before Scout spoke up. "Yo, what's in these?" He had taken a big bite of a McEel burger and didn't look like he was sure if he liked it or not. "Eel, mostly," Tim answered. Scout's face scrunched up, apparently, he had made up his mind. But then he took another bite and slowly nodded while his expression didn't change. Soldier chose a fried pigeon sandwich. "This tastes like pigeon," he said with food still in his mouth.

"Humans ate pigeon too?" Tim asked.

"No," Soldier responded. He took another bite and thought for a moment. "I've had better." Engineer was halfway through a Dolphin McRib (available for a limited time!) when he said, "Well, these here are mighty fine. What's in 'em?"

"Dolphin!" Sam answered brightly. "Dolphin ribs are one of my favorite foods, they're so tasty!" Her eyes glazed over while she thought about it. "Especially with some seal sauce on it," she hummed, "sooo good."

"Oh." She blinked and looked at Engineer. "What's wrong?"

"Nothin', little lady," he strained to smile, "everything's just fine." It looked like he forced himself to take another bite. "See?" Dave didn't know human expressions very well, but he looked like he was about to be sick. Sam looked worried as she whispered to Dave, "Was it something I said?" Dave could only shrug, he thought dolphin was delicious too. The human in the business suit and the mask slowly walked up to the Inklings. A small, white stick he held in his lips emitted a trail of smoke that dissipated into the orange light of the sunset. "Pardon me," he began, "but where is the good doctor?"

* * *

Callie stepped out from the news studio into the cold night air. The Squid Sisters had just given their last broadcast for the evening. She always needed some fresh air at the end of the day after being stuck in that stuffy building for so long. She usually used this brief moment to update her blog. The metal door to the studio creaked and softly thudded behind her. She heard a click from the other side. _Squit_. Callie always forgot about the automatic lock on that door. She'd have to text Marie to let her in later.

 _Speaking of texts_ , her phone had been going crazy all day. She had to put it in her purse because it kept going off on the set. Now that she had a moment to herself, she could see who had been so desperate to talk to her. Her black eyebrows rose in surprise when she saw the ID on the text bubble. What did grandpa want to tell her that was so important? She unlocked her phone and scrolled through the long list of messages. There were so many that grandpa had to at least send five a minute, which was pretty impressive given his elderly hands. The messages all had the same theme of "Agent 1, you and Agent 2 need to come to Octo Valley ASAP". _That's concerning_ , she thought.

A dull ringing noise cut through the night air. It sounded like a trashcan lid being pulled off the can. Callie glanced up from her phone into the alley. She couldn't see very far beyond the light provided by the lamp above the door. She turned her attention back to her phone and texted Marie, _Hey could u let me in? Im locked out again_. She heard the light scrape of a boot on concrete. The Squid Sister peered back into the murky alley. She began to feel the cold cutting through her thin costume. "Is anyone there?" she called out. When no one responded, she figured she was being paranoid. But Callie's gaze lingered on the darkness before she slowly went back to her phone.

She opened her blog and started to type out her day. Well, not all her day, her fans had heard most of it before, being a newscaster wasn't the world's most exciting job. She stood there, mentally going through her day for anything fun or interesting. _Oh!_ She had completely forgotten about spilling her hot coffee on her producer that morning! Her fans would get a kick out of that! Marie certainly did. Callie's gloved fingers began flying across the keyboard as she typed her story (using many emoticons).

Callie was nearly done typing when she heard another boot scuffing against the ground, much closer this time. She looked up from the phone. She saw a flurry of white and red before a large circle smashed into her face. Callie reeled back, and her head crashed into the locked door. Her ears rang as she collapsed against it. Darkness was closing in rapidly from the corners of her vision. The last thing she saw was a big, red rubber glove reaching out to grab her.


	8. Chapter 8

"'If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight!'" Soldier shouted. He looked around as though he were lecturing to a crowd, rather than the lone Inkling in front of him. He began to pace back and forth. "Sun Tzu said that!" The man stopped in front of his sole audience member and jabbed a meaty finger on Dave's head. "And I'd say he knows a little more about fighting than you do, _pal_ , because he invented it!" He straightened and resumed pacing. "And then he perfected it so that no living man could best him in the ring of honor!"

Soldier had dragged Dave away from the rest of the humans and his friends after they finished their McPrawnald's. The pair currently stood under the flickering halo of a streetlamp. Dave shivered. The Sun set a few minutes ago and warmth was already leaving the salty sea air. The human didn't look remotely bothered by the cooling weather, he lectured so fervently. He detached the two strange, orange balls from his chest and waved them around. "Then he used his fight money to buy two of every animal on Earth. And then he herded them all onto a boat. And then he _beat the crap out of every single one_!" He smashed the two balls together for emphasis.

 _This "Son Zoo" must've been incredible_ , Dave thought. _Are all humans like that?_ Soldier chuckled to himself and then straightened. "And from that day forward any time a bunch of animals are together in one place it's called a **'zoo'**!" He got right in Dave's face on the last word. Dave smelled the human's breath for the first time, _and Cod,_ was it awful. It was an unholy blend of scents that Dave couldn't place. He felt his dinner rushing up his throat. The Inkling slapped his hand over his mouth and tried to keep from getting sick on his new coach. "Unless it's a farm!" Soldier shouted, still uncomfortably close to Dave's face.

Mercifully, Soldier stepped away from his single student, although he didn't seem to notice Dave's efforts not to vomit everywhere. Dave blinked back tears and forced the bile down. He exhaled and returned his attention to Soldier. "That was an excerpt from chapter ten of _The Art of War_. You will memorize everything in that book to the letter, do I make myself clear?"

"I have to memorize everything?" Dave exclaimed. "I can't do that in a month! That's- "

" _Do I make myself clear?_ " Soldier cut him off.

Dave hesitated. "Yeah…"

"And from now on you will say 'sir' when you address me! Got it?"

"Yes, sir," Dave said.

"Do not call me 'sir'!" Soldier shouted. "I am not a 'sir'! I work for a living!"

Dave was confused. "But you just said to call you 'sir', Soldier!"

"That's _'sir'_ to you!"

Dave had a feeling he wasn't going to enjoy working with his new coach.

* * *

Sam rested her chin on her hands and huffed for the fiftieth time that hour. She watched the humans toss their dice again for what felt like the hundredth time that hour while she sat on her splatling's ink case. Engineer tried to explain what this 'Craps' game was to her, but she just couldn't understand it. Maybe it would've helped if he didn't cut off his explanation every time the dice were thrown. Her friends seemed to get it, though, Alan had even started placing bets with the rest of the humans.

Dave's new coach took him away from the group a while ago, stranding his team with a pack of rowdy humans with only streetlamps to see with, and she didn't know why. All the other humans didn't seem too concerned about starting their lessons right away. Her eyelids were heavy. Sam fished her phone out of her pocket and squinted at the sudden bright light. _11:45_. That was way past her normal bedtime. She stretched her arms above her head and yawned. When she reopened her eyes, Medic was there. Sitting on the other end of the circle of gambling humans, a trash bag on the ground next to him.

Sam blinked, rubbed her eyes, and then blinked again for good measure. _Where did he come from?_ It was like he appeared out of thin air. Did the other humans notice? Did they care? Why was there a trash bag? Engineer cast the dice and noticed the newcomer. "Howdy, doc."

"Hello."

The rest of the humans muttered a greeting and returned to their weird game. Now Sam was really confused. Were they curious why their teammate just returned out of nowhere, after disappearing for several hours, with a trash bag, without offering any explanation? Did they notice? _Did they even care_?

After waiting for what felt like an eternity for someone to bring up the whale in the room, she finally leaned over and tugged on Engineer's sleeve. She didn't know why she trusted Engineer more than the other humans. Maybe it was because he was so friendly compared to the others. Or maybe it was because he reminded her of Sheldon, with his hardhat and dark goggles. "Yeah, darlin'?"

She wasn't entirely sure how to broach the subject of Medic. "Uh, aren't you curious why he disappeared for a few hours and came back with a trash bag?" she asked. He nodded. "Then why haven't you asked him about it?"

"Well, that's 'cause it ain't my business," he answered.

" _It's not your business_?"

"Nope."

Sam sat back on her splatling, dumbfounded. How could it not be 'his business'? Weren't these guys on some kind of team together? Isn't communication and openness central to effective teamwork? That's what all the pro-turfing teams said was their secret to success. What kind of team was this? She was about to press Engineer about it when the bag moved.

Sam thought she imagined it. The bag had moved almost imperceptibly. It could've just been the wind nudging the bag ever so slightly. She watched the bag carefully for any other signs of movement, just to be sure. It didn't move again while she gazed at it. After a few minutes, she slowly tore her eyes from the plastic sack back to her phone. Her tired mind was just playing tricks on her. That was what she thought at least, until something lashed out against the confines of the bag. She definitely didn't imagine that. Engineer apparently noticed it too. "Your bag's movin', doc," he said without looking up from the game.

"Hm?" Medic had been dozing on the ground, arms crossed. He blinked and glanced at his trash bag, which thrashed with increasing intensity. "Ah," he said. "Thank you, my friend." He uncrossed his arms and raised an elbow over the bag. It hovered there as he examined the bag's, or rather the contents of the bag's, flailing. He pinpointed the source of the movement and brought his elbow down on it, hard. There was one last spasm, and then the bag ceased all movement. Medic re-crossed his arms and Sam heard him mutter, "Should have used the brick," under his breath.

Well if she wasn't already scared of the humans, she definitely was now. She was unnerved by Medic before he abducted someone, with his too-wide grin and his piercing eyes, but the rest of the humans' refusal to ask him about the bag made her feel less safe. Scary as he was, Sam couldn't just sit by and let him squidnap someone. She only agreed to hiring the humans to help save the turf team, she didn't want anyone getting hurt because of her. She took a deep breath. "Excuse me, Mr. Medic?"

"Hm?"

"If, uh, if y-you don't mind me asking," she sputtered, "wh-what's in the bag?"

"Nothing for you to worry about," he replied coolly. There was an edge to his voice that told her she shouldn't ask any more questions.

"Oh, okay," she said weakly. It can't be said that she didn't try.

Sniper raised his arm and squinted at his watch. "'S almost twelve," he said. The other humans nodded and started to get up. Scout grabbed the dice and shoved them in his pocket. Engineer stood up tapped Alan's shoulder. "Alan, right?" he asked.

"Yeah." He nodded.

"Do me a favor an' go get your friend and Soldier."

"Sure." He ran off to where Soldier and Dave went several hours ago. Sam yawned and knuckled her eyes. "What's happening?" she asked tiredly.

"It's almost midnight, so Merasmus'll be showin' up soon," Engineer answered. "He's got a flair for the dramatic."

A gravelly voice came from behind her. "Is that what he calls it?" Solider marched to the group with Dave and Alan trailing behind. Dave's eyebrows were furrowed and his eyes downcast. Her fellow Inklings came up to her and Tim. "You alright?" she asked. He nodded wordlessly. "You sure?" she pressed, "You look miserable."

"Yeah," Alan added, "You look like Tim."

"Hey!"

"No offense, man, but you always look like you're at your own funeral."

"I do not!"

"Yeah, you do," Alan argued, "Sheldon asks me if you're depressed every time he sees you."

"I don't-" he inhaled deeply to calm himself, "Sam, do I always look depressed?" She suddenly found the ground very interesting. He scowled and turned to Dave. "Do I always look depressed?"

He remained silent for a moment and then he grinned imperceptibly. "You constantly look like you're in the middle of an existential crisis while your dogfish is being put down."

Tim crossed his arms sullenly and muttered, "I don't look depressed." Before they could keep arguing, Engineer told them to gather their things. The rest of the humans were loitering around the warehouse, waiting for Merasmus to show up. Medic had shouldered his squidnap-bag and was chattering excitedly at Heavy in a harsh language Sam couldn't understand. That confused her. Wasn't there some magic thing Merasmus did that let them communicate? Did it only work for one language? Did humans have more than one language? Would they understand her if she spoke in Jelly? This was way too complicated for her exhausted mind. She rubbed her hand on her forehead.

" **COWER FOOLS, MERASMUS IS HERE!** "

"Shut your goddamn mouth and send us home right now, Merasmus, or I _will_ _break every dirty dish in the castle and shove them up your ass!_ " Soldier shouted to the empty air.

" _You are no fun, Soldier_ ," replied a more subdued Merasmus. Sam heard the disembodied wizard's voice chant before a green smoke enveloped her. It clogged her nose and smelled like sulfur and rotting eggs. She dimly heard the crack of thunder before the world went dark, and she couldn't feel anything anymore.

* * *

Sam struggled to stand up straight. Her head was somehow aching, throbbing, shooting, and hazy all at once. She coughed and feebly waved away the lingering green smoke while struggling to keep her dinner down. The world wouldn't get any less blurry no matter how much she blinked, so she stuck out her hand hoping to find something to keep her upright. She gripped something made of heavy fabric and tugged on it steady herself.

Her surroundings finally came into focus and the ground heaved less and less beneath her. The first thing she noticed was that it was cold. Very cold. Like a "concrete bunker a mile underground with the fridge left open" kind of cold. A much more important thing she noticed was that it was dry. Extremely dry. Her mouth already felt like it was full of cotton. One thing that Inklings retained from their ancient, aquatic ancestors was that they don't handle arid or dry climates very well. Older Inklings could dry themselves out to live longer, but constant drying would turn a healthy Inkling into squid-kid jerky if they didn't get enough water. It's a wonder Inklings ever managed to survive while they were so reliant on and threatened by water. Life can be a paradox sometimes.

Unhospitable climate aside, the room she found herself in wasn't very impressive. The cracked concrete floor was covered by a frayed, red carpet. A few well-worn couches and chairs, all red, were haphazardly placed around an ancient-looking TV. The walls were made of wooden planks, also red – whoever designed this place really liked red – and there were three hallways that led away from the room. The flickering lights that dangled from the ceiling brought her attention to what she was hanging on to, and she blanched immediately. Heavy was staring at her, massive arms crossed, with a single eyebrow on his stony face raised.

She grinned sheepishly and slowly backed away before something caught her heel. With an undignified yelp, she plummeted back to the ground. She rubbed her head as she looked at what tripped her. Tim was face-down on the ground, his arms splayed. She saw Dave and Alan staggering to their feet, hands on their heads. All her friends accounted for, she noticed that Heavy was the only human here. He answered her question before she could ask.

"They are all sleeping," he grumbled. "Heavy lost nose-goes, so he has to find place to put you." He eyed Sam. "You are girl, yes?" She nodded yes, and he hummed noncommittally in response. Heavy gestured to her bumbling teammates. "They are not girls, yes?" She nodded again, and he grunted.

"Wait here, do not touch anything." He left the room and came back a few minutes later with a bundle of faded, red blankets. Heavy shook them once and a cloud of dust and dead moths exploded off and dispersed through the air. He dumped the blankets on top of Dave, who had just finally managed to stand up, and said, "You three sleep here."

He turned to Sam, "Come." He lumbered down the same hallway he went down before without checking to see if she followed. She waved goodbye nervously to her friends and went after the large human. For such a big person, it was surprisingly hard to not lose him as he twisted and turned through the maze of concrete walls. There was a new locked door or branching corridor seemingly every five feet. After what she swore was four left turns and then four right ones, he stopped at a nondescript door. The handle turned with a squeak and the hinges groaned as he opened it. He held it open and didn't go inside. "You sleep here."

She inched her way inside and tried not to choke on all the dust in the air. The light spilling in from the hallway revealed a room that looked like it had never been slept in. "Be awake and ready by five." He shut the door before she could protest. _Five o'clock?_ That was ridiculous! Sane people didn't get up before ten. The earliest risers got up at nine. She checked her phone. The clock said "1:30 a.m." That gave her two hours to sleep, at most, if she could even fall asleep on this bed. It was coated in a thick layer of dust. She threw the blanket into the air and was immediately blinded by the fine particles.

After she rubbed her eyes clear, she set an alarm on her phone, stripped off her clothes, and crawled into the lumpy bed. It didn't take her long to slip into the dull sleep of the utterly exhausted.

* * *

Heavy walked to the communal telephone and found Engineer in the middle of a conversation. It did not look like he would finish anytime soon, so Heavy leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, and waited. Some time later, Heavy heard Engineer say, "Thank you kindly, Ms. Pauling," before the click of the phone returning to its holder.

"She wasn't too happy about being interrupted during some late-night fingerprint removal," Engineer began, "but I managed to get through to her. She'll be here in a few hours."

Heavy nodded, "Good."

Engineer turned to leave, "Sweet dreams, pardner."

Heavy grunted.


	9. Chapter 9

Loud pounding thundered through the small bedroom, disrupting Sam's blissful sleep. She tried to blink the residual grogginess away, but her heavy eyelids could only open a sliver. After a few moments of blindly groping the nightstand, she found the hard-plastic case of her shellphone and thumbed the power button. Light stung at her bleary eyes and forced her to close them again. She squinted through the blinding aura and checked the time. _3:00._ She still had at least an hour of sleep before she was required to wake up, and the banging on the door still hadn't stopped. What kind of crazy person went around pounding on doors at three in the morning?

" _Get up right now or I will kick this door in and stick your ear in the bell and play reveille as loud as humanly possible!_ "

Well that answers that.

She dragged herself out of bed and threw on her dirty clothes before trudging to the door, which caved inwards with every blow. As soon as she placed a hand on the doorknob, the door flew open with a loud crack and she was thrown into the wall. Soldier burst into the room with a dented metal instrument on his lips, blowing a tune that went up and down rapidly. When he didn't see the inkling in front of him, he paused his song and scanned the room. He eventually found her stunned on the ground behind the door. "Oh, there you are!" The human exclaimed before immediately resuming his song.

If Sam wasn't awake before, she was now (albeit a bit dazed). After a brief moment of recollection, she tiredly asked, "W-why are you here? Mister Heavy said I had to be ready by five."

"Because _I_ am giving all you maggots early morning training!" He answered. "Now get yourself ready and be in the lounge by o'four hundred hours! If I have to be kept waiting you will have hell to pay! _Understand_?" The scared whimper escaped her seemed to appease the terrifyingly loud human. With that, he spun on his heel and left the room. Sam shook her head to clear any remaining mental cobwebs and ran into the hallway after him.

"Wait!" she cried. "Where's the bathroom?" No answer came, Soldier had already disappeared into the concrete labyrinth. A mix of a sigh and a groan passed her lips. _Great._ She had no idea where she was in a desert facility several millennia in the past filled with possibly insane humans _and_ she had to pee. Sam took a deep breath and analyzed her situation. She was obviously in a residential section of the building, so bathrooms would probably be somewhere nearby. They weren't connected to the bedrooms, which left the unmarked doors at the ends of the hallway. There was one featureless door on either side of the hall, both looked identical, so she went to the one on the right first and prayed to Cod it wasn't the men's room.

She slowly pried the door open and furtively glanced around, keeping her gaze close to the floor. "H-hello?" She called out. When no voice responded by chastising her, she stepped inside and brought her gaze up from the surprisingly clean tile flooring. Stalls lined the wall and there were several showerheads hanging over drains on the far side of the room. An absence of urinals, and the general lack of filth, indicated she guessed right. All the humans were male as far as she could tell (except for the one in the gas mask, she had no idea what that thing's gender was), so she could do all her business unbothered. Thank Cod.

* * *

Sam exited the bathroom and shook excess water off her tentacles. Half an hour had passed, and she was refreshed and ready for the long day ahead of her. Well, refreshed as she could be with morning breath and dirty clothes. She really should have brought shampoo, toothpaste, or at least a change of clothes before she traveled back in time. The shower's water pressure was just perfect, though, barely more than a trickle. High water pressure can tear through inklings' liquid bodies and dissolve them, but water at low pressures can't penetrate the thin membrane of mucus that coats their skin.

Assuming the lounge was where she teleported in that morning, all she had to do was retrace her steps from last night. Easier said than done. The hallways twisted, turned, and split constantly, she went down several dead ends before she got even remotely on the right track. Unlabeled doors seemingly appeared every ten feet. It was like this place was designed to get people lost. She finally found the lounge after wandering around the building like a lost child in Arowana Mall looking for its mother.

The lounge hadn't changed much from the previous night, it still possessed a lived-in atmosphere with its worn furnishings. What had changed from last night, or rather earlier this morning, was three threadbare blankets and pillows strewn about on the couch and floor. So, this was where her teammates slept? Why were they stuck here when she got a room all to herself? She couldn't see what warranted her special treatment, she had never been treated any differently than her teammates before. Speaking of her teammates, where were they? Soldier was very adamant that everyone be here by four o'clock, she didn't know much about humans, but she could tell Soldier intended to keep any threats he made.

"See! I told you this was the right way!" came a familiar voice.

As if on cue, the rest of the Mad Mollusks walked in, tentacles still dripping wet from the showers. They were talking amongst themselves and hadn't noticed her yet. "You led us down five dead ends before you picked this way," Tim sighed.

"Yeah, but I got us here, didn't I?" Alan retorted.

Dave cut off Tim before the argument could escalate, "Hey Sam."

That seemed to work, as both Alan and Tim registered her presence for the first time. They both muttered a hasty greeting.

"Where were you last night?" Dave asked.

"They gave me my own room."

"Why?"

She shrugged. "I don't know," she said, "I would've been fine sleeping in here with you guys."

" _Atten-_ _ **Hut!**_ "

All four inklings heads snapped towards source of the command. Soldier stood at the opposite end of the room, a wooden stick protruded from under his arm. His head was held high and his heels glued together. Sam quickly checked her phone, exactly four o'clock. " _Atten-_ _ **Hut!**_ " he repeated, much louder this time. Sam nervously glanced at her teammates, they didn't seem to know what "Atten-Hut" meant either. When the inklings failed to respond to his order promptly, the human bared his teeth and stomped to the group.

"When I tell you to stand at attention, _you will stand at attention!_ " he growled. That didn't explain anything.

Dave seemed to sense his friends' confusion, "What's attention?" he asked.

Soldier apparently was not prepared for that question because he paused to process it.

"Maybe it is an order to listen to him," Tim offered.

"Is it?" Alan said, scowling. "I thought it means he can't get people to pay attention to him without shouting." Soldier's face instantly switched from bafflement to unbridled rage. That comment struck a nerve, apparently.

" _What did you just say, maggot?_ " His voice was a barely above a harsh whisper. Sam involuntarily backed away from the human; his voice could make a charging salmonoid turn tail, it was so scary. Frightening as it was, Soldier was giving Alan a chance to recant his statement. Alan didn't take his offer.

"I said you were a loud, squithead that couldn't command respect from a prawn," Alan spat. "What kind of maniac wakes people at three in the Cod damn- "he couldn't finish before Soldier smacked him across the face with the wooden stick that was under his arm just a moment before. The crack of the weapon mixed with the inklings' surprised yelps. The yellow-haired inkling plummeted to the ground. Sam ran to his side while Dave interposed himself between Soldier and his team. "Woah, woah, woah," Dave shouted. "You can't just do that!" His hands were in the air in front of him, like he was trying to calm a feral animal.

Without breaking his death stare on Alan, Soldier placed the tip of the stick on Dave's upper arm and casually shoved him aside, as if Dave was merely a fly buzzing in his face. Soldier towered over Sam and Alan but did not acknowledge her presence in the slightest. He raised the stick again, the small loop of leather looked almost eager, and pointed it right between Alan's eyes. "I didn't serve three goddamn tours in Poland to be bad-mouthed by some ten-year old with a lousy attitude. In this man's army," he pointed to himself, "you will obey every order and respect your superiors. Because of this paint-eating scum, you all will be running an extra five miles and- "

"What the hell, Soldier?"

Everyone turned to the new voice. Scout stood in the doorway, wearing nothing but striped red boxers and the metal tags around his neck, a bat in hand. Soldier scowled, "This isn't any of your business, city-boy."

"I'm pretty freekin' sure it is my business when you're whipping my fuckin' kid," he retorted. "Whip your own God damn squid or I'll take this," he brandished the bat, "and beat your head in."

"But I am going to train them in the art of war! You will thank me!"

"Not if you break them!" Scout retorted. "We already told you that you only get one, Soldier." He rose the bat again, "Now beat it!" Soldier looked ready to escalate the dispute, but seemingly thought better of it. He jabbed a meaty finger at Dave. "With me," he ordered. "Because of your friends, we're going on a ten-mile run now." Soldier turned heel and left the room with Dave in tow, who shot a scowl at his teammates before disappearing in the concrete maze.

"Freekin' lunatic," Scout muttered before he turned to Alan, "You alright?" After he was pulled back to his feet by Sam and Tim, he nodded and rubbed his cheek. "Jeez," Scout said, "That's gonna leave a mark."

"What the shell's his problem?" Alan asked.

"Soldier? He's just crazy. Thinks he's some great war hero or somethin', even though he never was in the military." Scout thought for a moment. "Don't say that to him though, he'd probably kill you."

"What a nut case," Alan remarked.

"You said it, pal." He glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. "Anyway, I gotta get ready for work. See you guys later." Scout exited through the entrance he came from while muttering about trumpets and left the remaining three inklings to themselves. Sam examined Alan's face where he was struck, despite his adamant claims of being fine, while Tim climbed onto a worn chair, tucked his hands under his arms, and closed his eyes. After Sam determined that Alan was just bruised and not bleeding, they both decided to follow Tim's lead and try to reclaim some of the sleep that had been stolen from them.

* * *

A large, firm hand on her shoulder shook Sam out of her sleep, waking her prematurely for the second time that morning. Once was annoying, but being woken up two times in the span of two hours? That was just ridiculous. Do humans get out of bed before ten o'clock and make sure that nobody else has a full night's rest? All she wanted was sleep, was that too much to ask?

"Rise 'n shine, darlin'."

Evidently, it was. She wrenched her eyes open and saw a pair of dark goggles staring blankly back at her. "Five more minutes, please?" she pleaded.

He shook his head. "I've got someone for you all to meet, and she does not like to be kept waiting." Sam groaned and slid limply off the couch onto the floor before dragging herself to her feet. Tim and Alan stood behind Engineer, but they looked just as dead on their feet as Sam felt. Engineer clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "Let's get a move on." He led the three into the twisting corridors.

Sam noticed that someone important was missing: Dave. She asked Alan where he was. "Beats me," he replied. "He got dragged off by the lunatic and they haven't come back."

"They might be on their way back," Tim added. Now she was worried, Dave was all alone with the lunatic that whipped Alan across the face for being rude. Fortunately, unlike Alan, Dave didn't have an attitude or a big mouth, but that didn't change the fact that he was all alone with a crazy person. Soldier could have snapped and killed Dave already and they would have no idea. Cod, if anything happened to Dave she wouldn't be able to live with herself. It would be all her fault. Tim and Alan may have come up with the idea to do this, but she could have stopped it at any time. If Dave got hurt that would be his ink on her hands. While she was worrying herself sick, Alan decided to pester Engineer while they followed him.

"How come she got a room all to herself?" he asked.

"Who?" Engineer replied, "Her?"

"Yeah."

Engineer eyed her for a moment before a realization dawned on him. "Oh, Heavy must've stuck you in Sniper's room," he said. "Sniper never uses the company rooms, always sleeps in his camper." That answer did not to satisfy the inkling.

"Yeah, that's great and all, but why did she get her own room?"

"If it was Sniper's room why did she get to sleep there and not me?" Tim interjected. "Sniper is my coach, I should be entitled to his room."

"Well, uh," Engineer seemed hesitant to answer, "if I had to guess, I'd say he didn't want a girl sleeping in the same room with three young boys. That would be, uh," he coughed awkwardly, "risky." It took a moment before Sam realized what he was implying, and she felt her cheeks warm. Alan must have understood, too, because his cheeks were a shade more yellow than usual. Tim, however, even though he was one of the smartest inklings she knew, did not grasp the implication.

"'Risky?' How is it risky?" he asked. Engineer did not answer him, instead he tugged on his collar and looked like he would rather be anywhere else. Alan pulled Tim to his side and whispered in his ear. "Oh," he said, "I see." He leaned back to Alan and whispered back to him. Sam swore she heard, "Those two would do that." The heat in her cheeks intensified and spread to the rest of her face. She must have looked like a tangerine that grew arms and legs, she was blushing so hard. Desperate to change the conversation to literally anything else, she asked who they were going to meet.

"My boss," Engineer answered, visibly relieved that the topic of the conversation had shifted. "Well, kind of. She's my boss's assistant, but she assigns the contracts and hands out the paychecks, so she counts as a boss in my book. She's a nice woman, but fair warnin', she ain't got no tolerance for bull when she's on the clock." A female human? That would distract her from her worries and, well, certain _other_ thoughts about her team leader. She was genuinely excited to meet this human. Sure, Sam knew what human women looked like, but that was from ancient pictures and art in those boring school textbooks. Being able to see and interact with one in person would be the freshest thing ever! It wasn't like meeting male humans wasn't fresh, but they were all kind of scary (some more so than others), and that made it hard for her to identify with them. She hoped to Cod that this woman wasn't scary like the men.

While Engineer was talking, the temperature gradually dropped as they followed him through the building. It was hardly noticeable at first, but by the time Engineer stopped at a door with a glowing green sign above it, she was shaking like a jellyfish on a blender. "Here we are." Engineer threw open the door and a wave of chilly night air buffeted the inklings. He held the door open and motioned for them to go outside. Alan exited first with Tim and her close behind.

Sam blinked her eyes to adjust to the sudden transition to darkness. As she adjusted to dim light of the sun peeking over the horizon and the bioluminescence of her tentacles, she could make out some vague silhouettes of the landscape. A few tall trees dotted the surrounding area and the gentle curves of rolling hills and mountains were far off in the distance, but the most dominating feature of the landscape was the building she just exited. It towered over her and was easily the largest, and the only, structure for miles.

The click of a lock and the scrape of gravel against boots indicated that Engineer had joined them. "She'll be here any minute now," he said. The inklings shivered and chattered their beaks while Engineer stood nonplussed, calmly watching a fixed point on the horizon, like he knew exactly where this woman would arrive from. There wasn't anything more interesting to look at in the early morning sky, so she followed Engineer's gaze and waited.

As the minutes passed, her eyelids became heavier and heavier. She struggled to keep them open as her head drooped against her chest. Sam was on the verge of nodding off when Engineer's voice jolted her awake. "There she is." She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. A pinpoint of light appeared on the horizon, exactly where Engineer had been watching. It steadily grew brighter as the woman drew closer, obscuring her from view, until it swung to the side as she parked her vehicle parallel to the group. Her vehicle's single headlight illuminated a patch of dusty, red earth.

"Howdy, Miss Pauling!" Engineer greeted as he approached her. A higher-pitched voice barked a short reply. It was as dry as Engineer's, but no less firm. Sam had no idea what she said, but the tone of her voice conveyed as much self-assuredness as the men. Strangely, Sam found herself respecting this woman despite not knowing a thing about her; she wished she could be so confi-

Wait…

Why didn't she understand her?

"Taking your work home with you?" Engineer gestured to a lumpy sack balanced precariously on the back of her scooter. Had Sam misheard the woman? It was possible, Sam was still dead tired, and the scooter's motor was still running. She strained to hear what the shadowy woman said next. The dark outline of Ms. Pauling turned its head to the large bag and then gave a tired-sounding reply. Engineer chuckled uncomfortably and rubbed the back of his neck. She definitely didn't understand that. Why?

The silhouette leaned forward to peek around Engineer's shoulder. It asked what Sam guessed was a question and the man turned back towards the inklings. "Yep, this is the fresh meat," Engineer answered. Pauling dismounted from her scooter and approached the tired squid-kids. She stopped in front of Sam bent forward and placed her hands on her knees. Sam could finally make out the woman's features as she leaned closer.

Thick-rimmed glasses rested over a pair of alert green eyes and strands of black hair framed her mousy face. Her clothes looked like they were taken from a movie on the Great Turf War and it consisted entirely of varying shades of purple. Each article of clothing's shade darkened the lower it was, with her shoes being almost black. Sam thought she was fresh, in a way. Not like _modern_ fresh because her outfit came from a six-decade's old fashion trend, but more like a timeless kind of fresh from how she carried herself, if that made sense. Miss Pauling's brow furrowed as she assessed Sam in turn. Apparently reaching judgement, Pauling turned her head toward Engineer without breaking her gaze from the inkling in front of her and said something to him.

"I s'pose so," Engineer replied.

"Hey," Alan interjected, "What did she say?" Tim and Alan must not have been able to understand her either. _That's a relief_ , Sam thought to herself. _I was worried it was just me_.

"She said y'all're adorable," Engineer answered. "Can't ya understand her?" Sam shook her head. Engineer hummed quizzically. "That's strange... Wonder why."

"Because Merasmus was terrible at his job and only used his magic on us and not on the maggots," answered a gruff voice. Everyone turned to Soldier, with Dave in tow behind. "He's probably still mad that I replaced everything in the fridge with sour cream," he said, as if that solved more questions more than it raised. Ms. Pauling, clearly confused, turned to Engineer and whispered to him.

"I'll tell you later," Engineer whispered back. "So, they can't understand English?"

"Not unless it's from us," Soldier said.

"Can't we get Merasmus to do his hocus pocus on 'em and fix it?"

"Negatory. He's lecturing at some stupid wizard conference today, and he won't be able to fix it until tonight." Soldier chuckled to himself, "I bet he bombs on stage."

Ms. Pauling exclaimed something and excitedly spoke to her human comrades for what seemed like an eternity. While the woman was yammering on, Dave shuffled to his friends, clearly deep in thought. Sam rested a hand on his shoulder, but that had no effect on his stupor. Ms. Pauling finally stopped talking, Alan rose a fist to his mouth and coughed loudly.

"Oh, right," Engineer seemingly forgot they were there. "She said it's perfect that y'all can't understand nothin' because she'd be liable to kill and bury y'all in an abandoned gravel mine if you did." He saw the looks on their faces. "Don't worry, so long as y'all don't stray from Miss Pauling or get sticky fingers around manila folders, y'all'll be fine.

"Anyway," he drawled, "Miss Pauling has kindly agreed to take y'all to her office where y'all can watch us work."

"People in an office building watch you guys work?" Tim asked incredulously, "What kind of job do you do?"

"One that pays well if you don't ask questions." He handed a set of keys that jingled loudly to Ms. Pauling. "Keep her in one piece, oh, and make sure that," he pointed to the lumpy sack, "doesn't stain the upholstery." She waved dismissively and said something that elicited a laugh from Engineer. Soldier grabbed the sack in question and he and the rest of the humans started walking to a parked car that was now visible in the early morning sun. They motioned for the inklings to follow.

Sam didn't know much about cars, but the truck in front of them looked positively ancient in design. It wasn't that it looked uncared for, though it certainly seemed well used, its design was ancient. The front bumper was bulky and wider than the rest of the car, and the sides of the bed were made of wooden planks. Black and red paint was chipped and faded. She had never seen a car like this, even those ancient human cars archaeologists unearthed all the time were more similar to modern cars than this (well, inklings based their cars on old human models, but still).

Engineer held open the driver's side door for Miss Pauling and closed it after she got in. "Two of you are going to have to sit in the bed," Engineer said.

"Back there?" Tim asked. "There's no seatbelts back there!"

"There's no seatbelts up front either."

"What!?"

"Son, I've had this girl since before '66, and I ain't about to spring for new extras to an old car."

Unsafe transport aside, the Mad Mollusks decided to settle seating arrangements with the age-old game of rock, paper, scissors. After several intense best-out-of-threes, it was decided that Tim and Alan were sitting in the back of the car, while Sam and Dave got to sit in the front with Miss Pauling. Sam climbed in first and Dave sat in the passenger seat and both found something solid to grip onto in lieu of a seatbelt. Once Tim and Alan clambered into the truck bed, Soldier dropped the sack onto their laps, causing both boys to yelp out in pain.

Miss Pauling turned on the ignition, put her foot on the gas, and drove away from the massive red building into the desert. Sam saw Soldier and Engineer waving goodbye in the rearview mirror. In the corner of the mirror, she also saw Tim open the bag and his face blanched instantly. Alan gave Tim a confused glare and reached into the sack, his expression instantly shifted to shock as he withdrew a severed hand. His scream caused Miss Pauling to swerve the car.

* * *

"How much do you bet that the old lady kills them?" Engineer asked.

"I'd bet you that picture of Spy fucking Scout's mom," Soldier replied.

Engineer chuckled. She was going to kill those kids, even if they couldn't understand anything. He just hoped that Miss Pauling would see fit to reimburse them for money they lost from their students dying.


	10. Chapter 10

Dave rested his chin on his fist as he vacantly watched the barren desert landscape crawl by. The rise of the sun did little to make the surrounding area more interesting, all it did was change the temperature from freezing to sweltering. He sighed as he watched a cactus identical to all the previous cacti slide past like it was part of an endlessly scrolling backdrop. Normally, Sam knew, when he was stranded on a long car ride, he would talk to his fellow passengers, but Miss Pauling wasn't able to understand him, and he evidently didn't feel like talking to Sam right now. Unfortunately for him, Sam did want to talk. She had been saying his name for the past fifteen minutes, trying to get his attention, but he had ignored her so far, at least until she flicked his ear.

He yelped at the sharp pain and rubbed a hand over the thwacked area. "What's wrong?" She asked.

"Nothing."

She rolled her eyes. "You and I both know that that's bullsquit." He didn't argue with that. "Seriously, what's up?"

He tried to deflect. "I'll… I'll tell you later."

"Why not now?" She gestured to the empty desert surrounding the truck. "We clearly don't have anything important to do right now."

"You're not going to give this up, are you?"

She shook her head. "You're brooding and smell all sweaty, and I can only deal with one of those two problems right now."

Dave sighed. "Okay, fine." He shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "Soldier said some weird- well, not weird, I guess, I don't know… I don't know what he was trying to say. He yelled a lot, so I didn't get most of what he said." Dave laughed awkwardly, like it was a joke that he was forced to find funny. Sam narrowed her eyes. Clearly, Dave would not spill what was bothering him. Apparently, Dave knew that his answer did not satisfy his teammate, so he drew out a worn book from his pocket. "Soldier did give me this, though," he handed it to Sam, "I think he said it was called the _War of Art_ or something."

The pocketbook's cover was torn, and its pages were waterlogged. Scents of smoke and dirt coated it like the smell of rotting fish from a trash bag on the street. Sam's nose scrunched up as she flipped through the book's pages. Blocky and complicated letters dominated every page. She thought they looked different from the writing on the signs she saw in the RED base but wasn't certain. She handed it back to Dave as he continued talking. "He said he wants me to read it and have it memorized by next week."

Sam's eyebrows furrowed. "How are you supposed to do that?" She asked. "You can't even read human."

"It's crazy, right?!" Dave exclaimed. "I can't do that!" He folded his arms and huffed, "It's like I'm back in school."

Sam giggled. "Like that bs project we had to do on the Great Turf War for Mr. Mantley last year."

"Yeah! But instead I can't read any of the books on it."

"Let's be real here," she said, "you didn't read any of the books for that project anyway."

"That's not true! I read, like, at least two." Sam quirked an eyebrow. "Okay, fine, one book and the introduction of the other."

"Oh, really?"

"…I only read one chapter, but in my defense I did infinitely more than Alan." He threw his hands up in the air. "Happy?"

Sam giggled again, "Yes." She actually was happier, because she managed to distract Dave from whatever was bothering him. He still smelled sweaty and gross though, but she'd take what she could get.

* * *

Sam and Dave kept idly chatting for the rest of the ride, until Ms. Pauling abruptly slammed the breaks. The two inklings flew into the dashboard and Sam heard two dull thuds from the bed of the truck. Alan and Tim weren't ready for that either, evidently. Miss Pauling said something to the inklings and got out of the car. Sam and Dave peeled themselves off the dash and blearily exited the car.

Miss Pauling had the duffle bag with the disturbing contents inside slung over her shoulder and was already walking away from the truck. The other two inklings had barely clambered out of the truck bed before a sharp whistle from Miss Pauling signaled them all to follow her. She took off swiftly, apparently unhampered by the bag's weight. The four inklings hastened after her, and Alan took this opportunity to complain. "I don't think I'll be able to sleep for weeks."

"You're not the one who touched it," Tim said.

"I still had to see it," he retorted. "That was nasty." He looked down and groaned. "Aw, some of the human ink got on my new shoes!"

"How'd that happen?" Sam asked.

"It was leaking when Tim took it out and I guess it spurted on me," Alan answered. "Do you think it comes out naturally like ink?"

"That was poor word choice," Tim commented.

"Like, if I just leave it alone I won't—what?" Sam and Dave snickered. "What do you mean 'poor word choice'? What's so funny?"

"So, human juice spurted all over your brand-new Zink Seahorses?" Dave asked while suppressing a laugh.

"Yeah, human juice got all over my—" realization dawned on his face. "Oh, screw you guys." The rest of the inklings laughed while Alan pouted. "I try to use a fancy word for once and you guys just laugh at me," he whined. "I'm just gonna use cavesquid-speak from now on."

"That would probably improve your callouts," Sam poked.

Alan furrowed his eyebrows and jutted his jaw forward. "Me no want hear it, woman!"

"Do we even know if they… uh, 'do it' that way?" Tim wondered aloud.

Before anyone could reply, Miss Pauling came to a stop at the foot of a towering mesa and eyed her four charges. She stood there, thinking, for a few moments before seemingly reaching an epiphany. The woman unzipped the gore-filled duffle bag, rooted around and withdrew four burlap sacks. They were small and stained with human ink. She took Sam's hand and placed it in Dave's, then Miss Pauling put up her own hand in a gesture that indicated 'stay,' as if they were dogfish. Sam tried to ignore the heat slowly spreading across her face.

Miss Pauling joined the rest of the inklings' hands together, forming a chain of increasingly bewildered inklings. She then put the bags over their heads. It. Smelled. _Awful_. Sam gagged at the sack's overpowering coppery stench. Groans and gagging told Sam that her friends felt the same way. The burlap was also thick, she couldn't see anything but the brown of the sack and deep-red stains. As she gagged, Sam felt a tug on her hand, urging her to follow.

Sam let herself be dragged forward, gripping onto Dave's hand tightly (just so she wouldn't get lost). She followed unthinkingly until Dave stopped abruptly, accompanied by several deep growls. Sam gulped nervously and squeezed Dave's hand even tighter. Miss Pauling barked out a single command and the growling quieted. She was dragged forward again, and she heard quiet snarling surrounding her before it passed behind them. Something wooden croaked and scraped against the dusty earth. The air staled and chilled. Their footsteps echoed through the unsettling silence.

The chain of inklings kept moving forward for several minutes until a male-sounding voice called out to them. Miss Pauling responded with what was presumably a greeting, then the man said something back. He sounded closer now. Miss Pauling replied again, her tone suggested finality, somehow. The man mumbled something back. Sam and her team were shoved onto a metal surface. There was a beep before the ground started moving. Sam realized that they were in an elevator, and going down.

Something cold and metallic poked her shoulder before Miss Pauling issued a rebuke. A man, different than the one from before, muttered an apology. Sam realized then that she was sweating, despite the rapidly decreasing temperature. She shuffled closer to Dave, or at least where she thought he was. The elevator descended for what felt like hours before it finally stopped. She was dragged forward again.

If it was cold before they took the elevator, it was positively frigid now. How deep underground were they?

* * *

"Miss Pauling, explain to me precisely _why_ you have brought children into my fortress?"

She had been dreading that question the whole morning. "Well, ma'am…"

"I was sure that you were aware of this company's strict 'no-children on the premises' policy."

"I _am_ aware of that policy, ma'am."

"So, you are aware that the only exception to that policy is for when children need to be silenced?" The Administrator continued, "I do hope you aren't planning to do that in my office."

"Of course not, ma'am," Pauling hurriedly assured. "They aren't here for termination, ma'am, they're here to observe the mercenaries on camera." An unimpressed glare. "Apparently they hired the mercenaries to coach them on fighting last night. They're also from the future and part squid, or something. I didn't quite get that part." The Administrator's face didn't so much as twitch. "Most importantly, they don't understand English and they haven't seen an inch of the facility."

The Administrator took a long drag from her cigarette. "You have not answered my question, Miss Pauling."

"Oh, well, Engineer fixed my woodchipper last month and I owed him a favor."

"This is precisely why we pay these men in cash, Miss Pauling," she droned. "Remove the bags." When Pauling complied, the Administrator leaned in so as to be eye level with the one with blue hair-tentacles. Her cold eyes bored into the boy's. Pauling had been on the receiving end of that piercing gaze more times than she could count but it never failed to make her shift uncomfortably in her skin. The 'inkling' subconsciously backed away from the owlish stare and the Administrator reclined slowly. Pauling swore she saw the ghost of a bemused smirk tugging on her lips.

The Administrator sat back in her chair for a long time, deliberating. Miss Pauling knew the Administrator had already reached her decision, probably from the moment they entered the building, but was enjoying making these children squirm. After the air had grown thick enough with tension to be cut with a rusty knife, the Administrator passed judgment, "How heartening it is, to know that the time-honored tradition of contract killing will be passed to the next generation."

She spun her chair back to the wall of monitors. "Be advised, Miss Pauling, if they look anywhere but these screens, you will find yourself digging four new shallow graves tonight."

"Understood, ma'am."

* * *

Even if the inklings could understand English, they would not have needed that warning. Their eyes were all glued to the array of monitors towering above them, despite their positively antique design. From the moment the RED Team spewed forth from those shutter doors Sam could follow each mercenary from screen to screen without losing sight of them for even a second. There were televised pro-turfing leagues that would _kill_ for this kind of battlefield coverage.

Sam had been watching Heavy for almost the entire time. He, Demoman, and Medic were charging into a blue, concrete building that appeared to mirror the REDs' base, weirdly. It reminded her of locations designed for turfing in Inkopolis. Almost as though this was also a staged battle. That would explain why the dried-out human woman in the chair frequently announced things into a microphone. Although, Sam had never seen a television studio with such tight security. Maybe that was just a human thing?

Heavy and his teammates had entered a courtyard area and all shell broke lose. Heavy jumped into the courtyard, twisting a small blue building while charging his weapon. The building emitted two quick beeps and fired at Heavy. It had two rotating barrels for arms that made it resemble a very uncomfortable chair. Bright streaks flew from the barrels and burrowed into Heavy's body, he shouted something to Medic. The next instant, he and Medic shone bright red. He laughed as the building's attacks pelted him harmlessly. Then, Heavy returned fire.

Sam thought the building's attacks were already loud, but Heavy's weapon was deafening, even through the speakers. He unleashed a torrent of those same yellowy streaks (Sam really had to ask what their weapons used for ammunition) back into the blue building. Demoman dashed into the courtyard, spun around, and fired a single red and black cylinder at the building. It hit dead center and the building exploded, sending smoking metal fragments everywhere. Heavy cheered and charged up the stairs where the building stood moments before with Medic.

Heavy, still glowing crimson, turned the corner and spotted a human that closely resembled Engineer, but wearing blue, scrambling to his feet. Heavy dropped his massive gun and slowly approached the Engineer-lookalike. The blue Engineer swung a massive wrench wildly at the giant human's head. Heavy raised a single hand and caught the Engineer's with ease. The man in blue tried to wrench himself free from Heavy's grip but couldn't resist the bigger man's grip. Heavy twisted the Engineer's arm and the smaller man's appendage bent a direction it probably wasn't meant to. Sickening cracks mixed with an inkcurdling scream through the grainy speakers.

Sam felt ill. She shot a glance at the other spectators, her teammates stared transfixed, horrified. The old human was enthralled as well, but her decrepit face betrayed a mixture of satisfaction and wicked glee. Heavy's red shine had faded by now, and Demoman ran to join him and Medic. Demoman raised a hand, presumably to give Heavy a congratulatory slap on the back and brought it down quickly. A slender man in a blue suit replaced Demo and a knife materialized in Heavy's back. Heavy bellowed a sharp cry and fell forward on the Engineer. The man wearing the blue suit drew a small weapon from his jacket and fired at Medic. Red ink spurted from Medic's chest and he collapsed.

Sam's hearts stopped. Did her coach just _die?_ She watched the video feed, desperately hoping that he would stand right back up and throttle the Spy doppelganger, but he laid still. As the blue Spy dragged Heavy's unmoving body off the Engineer like a sack of potatoes, Sam realized that he was well and truly dead. Sam had only known Heavy and the others for one night, but she still felt awful. Her hearts sank further when she realized that, since Heavy was dead, she had no teacher, so she probably couldn't keep up with her teammates. They would probably let her stay on the team, but she would just be a burden.

A desperate part of her bargained with no one. _This has been like turf wars so far, right?_ she mentally rationalized. _The battlefield was mirrored for both sides, the old woman was seemingly acting as a referee like Judd, and it looked like it could be televised. Why wouldn't it have some sort of respawn as well?_ She stared at the door the RED team came out of expectantly, hoping for the giant man to barrel through. After several tense seconds, the shutter door opened and, lo and behold, out came Heavy with Medic and Demo in tow.

Sam released a breath she wasn't aware she was holding. The mercenaries' battle became much easier to watch. They quickly settled into a cycle of mustering at spawn, charging into the enemy's fortress, and getting thwarted only to be set back to square one, all without that first charge's tension gripping Sam's hearts. Not to say that it wasn't exciting television, every individual duel or group push was an intense struggle of pure martial skill and knee-jerk reactions combined with reckless insanity. Sam saw some of them jump into the sky off explosions. Never had Sam seen combat at this level. The closest thing she could think of was the pro-turfing league's yearly championship, but she didn't think any pro-turfers could take on any of these mercenaries alone.

The old human woman plugged and unplugged a series of auxiliary cords announcing into her microphone as she did so. Her voice's tone betrayed something exciting happening. Scout had gone deep into the blue team's base and grabbed a blue briefcase from a large desk. He ran up the stairs that led to the courtyard. Sam saw the men in blue rushing to the courtyard to cut him off. Just before Scout leapt into the yard, Heavy and Medic emerged from the lower floor and shot at the blues, distracting them long enough for Scout to escape down the path where Heavy and Medic came from.

Scout dashed across the covered bridge back to his base, cheering as he went. He ran to a room deep in the bowels of his base that was almost identical to the room in the blue base. As he slammed the blue briefcase down on the desk, the old woman made two announcements into her microphone. The RED mercenaries cheered in response and rushed towards the fortress across the bridge. The old woman turned from the wall of screens and gave what sounded like an order to Miss Pauling. Responding with a curt nod, Miss Pauling blindfolded the inklings again. Thankfully, she didn't use the disgusting bags from last time. She joined the inklings' hands and led them away.

* * *

Sunlight burned at Sam's eyes as Miss Pauling removed the blindfolds. She blinked rapidly to expel the moisture accumulating in her eyes. As her vision slowly cleared, she saw her friends doing the same. She also saw Miss Pauling climb into Engineer's truck and ignite its engine. "Dibs on the front seat!" Alan shouted as he and Tim scrambled for the seats. Sam was about to complain, but Dave spoke before she could. "It's only fair, they sat back there on the way here."

She and Dave climbed into the truck bed and held on tight to the sides. Miss Pauling pulled away from the giant mesa onto the highway. Sam could barely contain her excitement, "That was so cool!"

"Yeah, I guess."

"I've never seen anybody fight like them!" Words tumbled out of her, "They fought in the air! They were in the air! How do they do that without super jumping? Can they fly on their own? Why was Heavy glowing? Their weapons were so loud and they blew each other into pieces! Did you see all those flashes? Do you think they use lasers? And – are you not excited?"

Dave shifted uncomfortably. "No, no it was cool it just looked… dangerous."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked. "Turf war is dangerous too."

"I know, but that looked like a different beast than turf wars. Like, dangerous because all those explosions and the fact that they didn't splat each other quickly." He paused to collect his thoughts. "You saw what Heavy did to that blue guy that looked like Engineer, right?" She nodded. "Doesn't that bother you at all?"

"Well… yeah," she admitted. "But it's not like they'll do that to us."

"Soldier hit Alan earlier."

"Oh, yeah. But they probably won't do that again," she offered meekly.

Dave didn't look convinced. "Besides," he said, "I don't think that kind of stuff is turf legal." Sam had no response.

* * *

Some time later, the truck approached another mesa that stood by a bend in the unending road. Sam thought little of it until Miss Pauling turned sharply off the road and drove into the empty canyon. The canyon rippled and absorbed the pickup truck and its passengers. Thick fabric smothered the two inklings in the truck bed. After batting it out of their faces, Sam and Dave beheld a massive, concrete factory, complete with covered windows and towering smokestacks that billowed soot and smoke into the atmosphere. A cacophony of beeping echoes tore Sam's gaze from the factory. Red buildings like the ones she saw on the screens flanked the truck on both sides, dozens of barrels tracking the car's every move. The inklings scooted closer to the front seats.

Miss Pauling parked the truck in front of a garage and exited the vehicle. As the inklings followed suit, the garage door lifted, and a tired-looking Engineer emerged from the dark interior. "Howdy, Miss Paulin'," he greeted. "Kids," he added as an afterthought. The new arrivals returned the call and Miss Pauling tossed him the truck's keys, which he caught. "Thanks for keepin' her in one piece, Miss Paulin'. Your moped's in the garage." He turned around and waved for them to follow.

The garage was unimpressive compared to what they saw mere hours ago. It was cold, dimly lit, and packed with odd parts and scrap ends. A white van riddled with holes occupied most of the room's space along with a few wooden crates, a refrigerator, and a dartboard hanging on the wall. It all combined to create a more "lived-in" atmosphere than the cold, industrial facilities they had seen so far. Miss Pauling straddled her purple moped, waved goodbye to the inklings and Engineer, and drove out.

"Welcome to RED Base, kids," Engineer began, "We brought along your guns, I think most everybody's havin' a look at 'em right now, actually." He chuckled, "I wanted real bad to take a look at 'em, myself, 'fore the boys could."

"Are they usually careful with weapons?" Dave asked uncertainly.

"Well, sure. Long as they ain't mighty curious how somethin' works." That wasn't very reassuring. "Don't fret, I'm sure I c'n fix anything they break." Before the inklings could press further, Medic entered the garage from a door leading deeper into the facility. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly before he strode into the room confidently. "Herr Engineer," he greeted brusquely. Engineer nodded, "Doc." As Engineer began a long, meandering lecture on all the things the inklings were not allowed to do in this building, Medic entered the back of the white van and emerged seconds later with that same trash bag from earlier slung over his shoulder. Her curiosity was too much for Sam to bear, she _had_ to know what was in that bag.

She nudged Alan and nodded towards Medic. He stared back vacantly at her, uncomprehending. She repressed a groan and inclined her head more obviously towards the trash bag. He seemed to take the hint that time, but he didn't understand what she wanted. Finally, she mouthed, _Get that bag open_.

 _Why?_ He mouthed back.

 _Just do it._ Medic was about to leave the room; it was now or never. "Excuse me, Mr. Medic?" He stopped and turned to Sam, a single eyebrow quirked. "While we were watching you fight, I saw you and Heavy glow bright red a lot. What was that?"

His face lit up, "That, mein frauline, was the ÜberCharge. It renders the patient immune to all forms of physical damage."

"That sounds fresh!" Sam supplied, "How does it work?"

Medic chuckled. "It has been a long time since I have had the opportunity to share my finest creation with someone. You don't mind, Herr Engineer?"

"Be my guest, Doc." While Medic regaled Sam with all the intricacies and incomprehensible medical jargon of the 'ÜberCharge.' She didn't understand a word of it, but Medic was so engrossed in explaining his invention he failed to notice Alan sneak up behind him. The yellow-haired inkling found a throwing dart and was using it to tear a hole in the plastic trash bag while Medic talked about electrical currents in the heart or something. Finally, Alan cut a big enough hole for some of the garbage inside to spill out of the bag.

A crushed soda can fell from the bag and clanged loudly against the floor. Medic stopped talking and looked over his shoulder at the inkling. " _Rattenkind!_ " he shouted. He spun around and grabbed Alan by the neck, lifting him into the air. Alan clawed uselessly at the rubber glove crushing his windpipe. Sam shot forward, gripped the bag and tore the hole open as wide as she could. Medic stopped threatening the flailing Alan and watched as the contents of his precious trash bag poured onto the floor.

Sam wasn't sure what Medic had found in Inkopolis that was so important, it was all just garbage so far. At least she wasn't sure until the bag dumped an unconscious inkling. Probably the worst possible inkling to find unconscious in a trash bag twelve thousand years in the past. Even under a layer of refuse and ink crusted over her face, the long, black and pink tentacles and sequined outfit were instantly recognizable. " _Oh Cod_ ," Sam whispered.

Callie Cuttlefish, the pop music idol, co-host of Inkopolis News, _one of the most famous women in Inkopolis_ , laid crumpled on the ground covered in garbage and her own dried ink.


End file.
